More VC activity in European e-commerce: Windeln.de, an online shop for baby products in Germany (or Diapers.com clone), has raised a €15 million (~$19.6m) new round of funding from existing investors DN Capital and Acton Capital Partners, while new investors MCI and 360 Capital Partners also participated. We understand that DN capital and MCI co-led the round. The new capital will be used to expand the product offering and improve customer service, as well as enter additional European markets.
Claiming to be Germany’s largest web store for daily baby products, Munich-based Windeln offers more than 20,000 products from over 300 brands which can be ordered for home delivery. These range from diapers, baby food and skin care to safety products, such as gates and monitors.
In the official announcement, DN Capital’s Nenad Marovac talks up Windeln’s “extraordinary” performance in 2012, citing strong growth, lean operations, logistics, and marketing, as reasons for this follow-on.
Moving forward, MCI’s Tomasz Czechowicz adds in a statement: “After the great traction in the German-speaking markets and now a revenue run rate of EUR 50 millions, we are very happy to support the launch in new and attractive markets, making windeln.de a European category leader”.
Windeln was founded by Konstantin Urban and Alexander Brand in October 2010, and currently employs 50 staff members.
Update: We’ve also learned that early investor High-Tech Gründerfonds disposed of its shares during this round, in what the VC firm says was a “very profitable” exit, with a multiple return (it isn’t being any more specific, however). Here’s how they describe the deal:
In this round, the investors MCI Private Ventures, 360 Capital Partners, Acton Capital Partners and DN Capital took the place of several investors from the early phase via a secondary buyout. High-Tech Gründerfonds also used this opportunity to dispose of its shares.
“For us this is a terrific success: A very profitable exit in which we multiplied our investment,” says Dr. Björn Momsen, who was responsible at High-Tech Gründerfonds for their commitment to Windeln.de. “The company’s development impressively showed how you can be successful with e-commerce in Germany. We were able to derive valuable best practices for our portfolio from this experience. We thank Konstantin Urban, Alexander Brand and their team for their great performance in the last two years and our colleagues at Acton and DN Capital for our very good and constructive work together.”