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.”
Windeln.de characterized by a wide range of products at low online prices. Windeln.de ffers online shop for baby products. The company is based in Munich, Germany.
DN Capital is a Pan-European early-stage venture capital firm. They typically invest €1-10 million per company depending on investment stage. They also look to help US companies enter the European market.
Launched in April 2008, Acton Capital Partners is a Munich-based specialist investor in internet- and mobile-based, consumer-oriented businesses. Having managed more than 30 investments since 1999 as the corporate venture capital business of Hubert Burda Media, the German family-owned global media company, the Acton team brings a wealth of expertise to the companies in which it invests, delivering superior capital returns. Successful History Since its inception, the BDV Fund has focused on early stage companies, with Acton Capital Partners assuring continuity...
360 Capital Partners is a european early-stage venture capital firm based in Luxembourg.
High-Tech Gruenderfonds is a Germany-based VC and invests in technology companies in the seed stage. The High-Tech Guenderfonds invests venture capital in young, up-and-coming technology companies, which implement promising research results in the industry. The start-up companies are planned to lead their R&D projects to the production of a prototype or a ?proof of concepts? or market launch by means of the seed financing of up to 500k EUR. The High-Tech Gruenderfonds has a fund volume of around 272m EUR....
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