Bird & Bird has advised ING Ventures, Speedinvest, Elevator Ventures, UNIQA Ventures, and the other shareholders of Berlin-based FinCompare GmbH on the sale of the company to a consortium consisting of DZ Bank and several Volksbanken including Berliner Volksbank, Hannoversche Volksbank, Volksbank Mittweida, Raiffeisenbank im Hochtaunus, and Atruvia.
FinCompare is a Berlin-based fintech firm that focuses on providing intermediation and independent advice on corporate financing. More than 250 banks and alternative financiers are on the brokerage platform. To date, the company has processed over 30,000 loan applications with a financing value of over €3 billion EUR. The sophisticated software tool is also licensed to commercial banks as a white label solution. During the covid-19 crisis, FinCompare helped to overcome the SME credit crunch by making it quicker to process the brokering of attractive KfW loans.
FinCompare also aims to enable financial institutions to acquire new customers more efficiently through faster processes and opportunities for active risk management. In addition, customer advisors in banks who cannot or do not want to handle financing requests via their own bank should be able to do so with other financiers using the platform. Independent advisors and brokers in the SME segment will also be further strengthened so that they can independently find the right SME financing for their clients, irrespective of the provider.
The FinCompare shareholders were advised by the following Bird & Bird lawyers: partner Dr. Stefan Gottgetreu (Düsseldorf), Counsel Andrea Schlote (Munich), both leading on the transaction, and associates Dominic Poster, Benita Schild (both Düsseldorf), Marina Dolina (Munich), all Corporate, partner Dr. Martin Nebeling and associate Julia Neuper (both Düsseldorf, Employment Law), partner Dr. Stephan Waldheim (Düsseldorf, Antitrust Law).
