Category Archives: News

ATESTEO acquires straesser, a leading vehicle testing service provider

3I

3i Group plc (“3i”) today announces that ATESTEO, an international drivetrain testing specialist in which 3i invested in 2013, has acquired a majority stake in straesser, a leading player in road testing and vehicle test driving services. The acquisition expands ATESTEO’s offering in the field of road trials, opening up significant growth potential.

Ulf von Haacke, Partner & Head of Industrial at 3i, commented:

“3i is pleased to support ATESTEO in this second add-on this year, following the acquisition of a drivetrain testing site in Munich in January. Both straesser and ATESTEO already have leading market positions and are growing strongly in their respective markets. They are highly complementary and together will be well positioned to lead the way in testing the quality of increasingly electrified and autonomous automotive technology.”

Wolfgang Schmitz, Chairman of the Management Board of ATESTEO, added:

“We continue to develop our portfolio of services for the benefit of our customers. By acquiring a majority stake in straesser, we are expanding our offering into an important growth market and extending our range of services to pre-series and series production tests, vehicle endurance runs, vehicle testing, and workshop activities for test vehicles. Together, we are a one-stop shop offering a comprehensive testing portfolio for the industry and we look forward to working with our new colleagues at straesser both in Germany and across Europe”.

straesser is headquartered in Kernen, near Stuttgart in Germany, and has over 280 employees. Its customer base comprises a wide range of well-known automotive manufacturers, suppliers and development and engineering service providers. Testing is carried out on proving and testing grounds as well as on public roads around the world.

straesser will continue to operate under its own name, but within the ATESTEO Group. Rolf Strässer will remain Managing Partner.

-Ends-

For further information, contact:

3i Group plc
Silvia Santoro
Investor enquiries
Tel: +44 20 7975 3258
Email: silvia.santoro@3i.com

Kathryn van der Kroft
Media enquiries
Tel: +44 20 7975 3021
Email: kathryn.vanderkroft@3i.com

Notes to editors:

About ATESTEO

ATESTEO GmbH, headquartered in Alsdorf, is the worldwide leading independent service provider for drivetrain testing with its 460 employees and over 130 drivetrain testing test benches in Germany and China. Its customers include virtually all automotive and transmission manufacturers. The company offers quality assurance through efficient endurance tests and functional tests of manual and automatic transmissions, differentials, as well as hybrid and electric powertrains.

About 3i Group

3i is an investment company with two complementary businesses, Private Equity and Infrastructure, specialising in core investment markets in Northern Europe and North America.

3i’s Private Equity team provides investment solutions for growing companies, backing entrepreneurs and management teams of mid-market companies with an EV typically between €100m – €500m. We back international growth plans, providing access to our network and expertise to accelerate the growth of companies across the consumer, industrials and business and technology services industries.

For further information, please visit: www.3i.com

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Norvestor invests in Wexus

Norvestor

Norvestor invests in Wexus Norvestor VII,L.P.(“Norvestor”), a fund managed by Norvestor Equity AS, has signed an agreement to invest in Wexus Gruppen AS (“Wexus”or “The Company”) Wexus is a rapidly growing specialist within semi-permanent modular buildings for the public, industrial and infrastructure market.

They offer highly cost efficient products and services for its markets, using high quality and low cost manufacturing from their fully owned production facility in Tallinn, Estonia. Modules are either sold or provided on longer-term rental agreements. Wexus has the ability to undertake the full scope from tendering to commissioning. The Company has experienced strong growth since its inception through the positive market development and taking significant market share.“ We have significant experience from the modular building market and believe we have the right combination of integrated production and project execution capabilities. The Wexus team has done a solid job of positioning us as one of the preferred providers to the public, infrastructure and industrial markets. These markets all have a sound underlying growth for the foreseeable future. We believe we are unique in our diversification in terms of geographies, module types and segments, which makes our business robust and flexible. Together with Norvestor we will seek to grow within our core markets and look for new growth opportunities. To enable continued high growth, we acknowledge the need for support and are therefore very pleased to have Norvestor on board as a partner”, says Egil Messmer, CEO of Wexus.“We are very pleased with the agreement to partner with Wexus. Their unique position and highly experienced team, along with a very cost effective and scalable structure, makes the Company an ideal platform for Norvestor in the modular facility market.

Wexus has proven an impressive ability to understand the needs of the market and deliver upon this. With the facility in Tallinn and their many long-term partners, they also have good control of the complete value chain of its products and services, making Wexus a highly reliable partner for their end clients.”, says Following the acquisition, Norvestor will become the largest shareholder in Wexus with approximately 60% of the shares; the management will hold the remaining shares. Wexus had consolidated pro-forma revenues of NOK 55 million in 2015 and NOK 70 million in 2016 and is expected to grow by more than 100% during 2017.  Wexus employs 79 people and is headquartered in Stavanger, orway

Wexus is a leading specialised manufacturer and provider of modular buildings to governmental institutions, municipalities and customers within the oil & gas, infrastructure, utilities, and shipbuilding segments. The buildings are provided either on a rental contract or through sale of permanent installations. The Company has a lean and cost efficient set -up in combination with focus on high-quality modules, which makes them perceived as one of the best “value -for-money” providers in the industry. Wexus has built a wide range of customers from all its major segments. Production is done from their fully owned facility in Tallinn. The Wexus team of 79 is based at the headquarters in Stavanger (Norway) and in the production facility in Tallinn (Estonia).

Read more at www.wexus.no

Norvestor Equity AS is a leading private equity company focusing on the lower mid-market in the Nordic region. The team has worked together since 1991 making it one of the most experienced private equity teams in Norway, having executed 65 investments with 260 follow-on M&A transactions, in addition to executing 43 exits including 14 IPOs. Norvestor focuses on investment opportunities in growth companies, making platform investments principally in Norway and Sweden, with potential to achieve a leading Nordic or international position either through organic growth, through acquisitions or by expanding into new countries. Funds advised by Norvestor are currently invested in the following portfolio companies; Life Europe, Johnson Metall, Sentech (formerly Advantec Sensing), Apsis, Aptilo, Cegal, Marine Aluminium, Crayon, Robust, iSurvey, Future Production, Nomor, PG Flow Solutions, Roadworks, Permascand, 4Service, HydraWell, Eneas, Presserv, Nordic Camping & Resort, READ Cased Hole, IT Gården and NetNordic.

 

 

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Almi Invest invests in Medtech PressCise

Almi Invest

Almi Invest invests SEK 2 million in Medtech PressCise, which is developing a new type of effective compression bandages, in a share issue totaling 4.8 million. The capital will be used to market launch, both in Sweden and internationally.

Compression bandages are used to treat chronic bone diseases such as varicose veins, leg ulcers and edema. Today’s bandages have different pressures depending on who winds, since different people different hard winds. This can delay the processing when the correct pressure is essential for optimal healing.

With PressCises unique patented technology for compression products are guaranteed the right pressure no matter who winds bandage. This provides a safer and more effective treatment, while health care costs will be lower because it takes fewer products and the total treatment time is shorter.

– The market for compression products are great and today’s products have clear limitations for both the patient and for the economy, says Mats Enegren, investment manager at Almi Invest. We see a clear demand for better products and believe that PressCise are well positioned to become a leading supplier.

PressCise is now about to launch its bandages and additional so-called patches under the brand Lundatex. The company is also developing a compression stocking.

– Our focus is to reach the market, says PressCises CEO Andreas Nilsson. With several strong investor capital and expertise in the back will enable us to accelerate our development.

 

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Intelligent and autonomous IT monitoring: bm|t invests in Enginsight GmbH

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BM-T

Enginsight GmbH, headquartered in Jena, Germany, develops and distributes an innovative, autonomously operating monitoring platform that detects dependencies between IT resources and highlights critical paths, risks and threats as well as security gaps for servers and websites. Whole IT landscapes can be analyzed and monitored for security, availability and stability. From the customer portal to the networked production system, from the outside (Internet) as from the inside (internal company network).

Enginsight pursues a new approach, using algorithms and artificial intelligence, to monitor the systems autonomously. This gives you the opportunity not only to be informed as to whether something has failed or is broken, but also to gain insight into the infrastructure itself and to discover dependencies or critical security gaps that were previously unknown.

Recently, the two-member founder team completed the seed funding round with bm|t (bm-t Beteiligungsmanagement thüringen gmbh) as lead investor as well as Paysmark Verwaltungs- und Beteiligungsgesellschaft mbH and Brandenburg Ventures GmbH as co-investors.

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Almi Invest invests in Referanza with Kichi Invest and Bo Mattsson

Almi Invest

Almi Invest invests SEK 2.5 million in Referanza, which is developing a tool to help companies identify their most satisfied customers to the next step to use them in their marketing by making them microinfluencers in social media.

In the issue, totaling over 6 million will also participate including Kichi Invest, the game company Paradox Interactive CEO Fredrik Wester is the majority shareholder, and Bo Mattsson, the serial entrepreneur who founded the company Cint, Mangold Fondkommission, EuroTrader and Nettrader.

Referanza has developed a tool which helps the company to get their satisfied customers to easily recommend their positive experiences and products they like to their friends in social media. The companies will then have the real, personal, credible trial and will thus away from the problems that Trustpilot and recommendation sites have false positive reviews. And while driving it on sale. Verified Customer Rating is magical content and gold worth of business because consumers tend to rely more on their friends’ recommendations than on traditional advertising.

There are a variety of solutions that are reminiscent of the Referanza make such referral marketing solutions that focus on satisfied customers to tell their friends about a product or service in social media, and digital survey solutions (NPS) where customer feedback is collected to find out what customers thought. But no one takes a structured approach to be on the positive customer experiences that people spread in social media. USP of Referanza lies in the self-service tools that they developed Referanzas where customers can see the entire flow, for example, through which social channels to their customers and their friends spread their positive reviews, which customers are most likely to share how great social influence of different customers, the friends that click like, which customers recommend and what they recommend (and thus is a new lead)

Every year several billion customer experiences. Referanzas product will be used in an endless variety of verticals which was making the market very large. It has initially chosen to focus on clients in the entertainment, such as cinema, theater, stand-up and sports.

We see a strong increase in the use of our platform, primarily from companies in the ticketing and entertainment industry, where hundreds of thousands of consumers already passed our mobile Flow, says Joakim Turesson, chief executive and co-founder of Referanza.Vi has a very high response rate and high viral spread is partly because that our tools are very easy to use, and we ask our customers in real time, ie immediately after the customer has the experience and the most full of it.

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Nordic Capital and MFEX management acquire MFEX, a leading independent fund platform in Europe and Asia

Nordic Capital and MFEX management acquire MFEX, a leading independent fund platform in Europe and Asia. ImageNordic Capital Fund VIII “Nordic Capital” and MFEX management has signed an agreement to acquire the majority of the shares in MFEX­­, a leading European B2B open architecture fund distribution platform. Nordic Capital sees great potential in supporting the acceleration of MFEX’s growth agenda across Europe and Asia and the consolidation in the sector.

MFEX is a leading B2B open architecture fund distribution platform with EUR 72 billion of assets under administration as of July 30, 2017. MFEX provides infrastructure for mutual fund distribution, facilitating access between fund companies and distributors. The Company is one of the largest independent fund platforms in Europe, connecting over 800 fund companies from 40 legal domiciles to over 100 distributors from 30 countries. MFEX was founded in 1999, is headquartered in Stockholm, and has offices in Paris, Geneva, Singapore and Umeå.

Nordic Capital had followed MFEX’s development for some years, which after contacts with management and key shareholders, subsequently led to a primary buyout together with management.

Going forward, Nordic Capital will support MFEX’s continued growth by investing in the organisation and its product offering. The Company’s growth potential is underpinned by strong underlying market growth, accelerated by an increasing regulatory focus on transparency, and a shift towards open architecture platforms. MFEX holds a strong market position, as evidenced by several notable contract signings with global financial institutions over the last few years, and is well positioned to benefit from the supportive tailwinds in the market.

As part of the transaction, Nordic Capital is injecting substantial equity into MFEX to position the Company as a natural consolidator of the fund platform industry in Europe and Asia. In addition, MFEX will benefit from Nordic Capital’s significant industry expertise and long history of successful growth oriented investments, in order to pursue its growth strategy.

“MFEX already has a strong platform for driving growth and the potential to become a global leader. It is well established as a high quality independent alternative in the European and Asian markets, and ranked highly by market participants for its quality of service, high flexibility, technical innovation and transparent pricing model. We share management’s ambition to leverage its attractive value proposition. Nordic Capital has a long history and proven experience in growing businesses within the financial services sector and looks forward to supporting the management team in building a pan-European leader in fund distribution services,” says Christian Frick, Partner, NC Advisory AB, advisor to the Nordic Capital Funds.

“We are delighted to partner with Nordic Capital to take MFEX to the next level. Market participants, distributors and fund companies alike tell us they need more transparency and independent providers with no conflicts of interests. This is exactly what MFEX stands for,” says Olivier Huby, Co-CEO of MFEX.

Oliver Lagerström, Co-CEO of MFEX, adds “By teaming up with Nordic Capital we get support to leverage, and further develop our leading fund distribution technology. With MFEX’s passion to combine transparency and technology we have modernised the industry and experienced strong organic growth. We are pleased to welcome Nordic Capital and we look forward to together continuing our transformation of the fund distribution proposition and undertaking M&A as a driver to expand in Europe and Asia.”

The financial services sector is a core investment vertical for Nordic Capital. Supported by its industry-leading advisory financial services team, Nordic Capital has in 2017 to date completed the take private of Nordnet, a publicly listed pan-Nordic digital savings platform, and the combination of Lindorff with publicly listed Intrum Justitia to create the industry leading provider of credit management services. The acquisition of MFEX further bolsters the high level of transaction activity that the Nordic Capital Funds have achieved since the beginning of 2016, with twelve successful exits and six new completed platform investments.

The parties have agreed not to disclose the financial terms of the transaction.

The investment is subject to approval by the relevant authorities.

 

Press contacts:

Nordic Capital

Katarina Janerud, Communication Manager, NC Advisory AB, advisor to the Nordic Capital Funds Tel: +46 8 440 50 50 e-mail: katarina.janerud@nordiccapital.com

MFEX

Oliver Lagerström, Co-CEO, MFEX
Tel: +46 8 559 036 80 e-mail: oliver.lagerstrom@mfex.com,

Olivier Huby, Co-CEO, MFEX
Tel: +33 6 618 760 72 e-mail: olivier.huby@mfex.com

 

About MFEX

MFEX, independent experts in global fund distribution, offers a complete solution for fund distribution. Banks and other distributors of funds use MFEX to access the world’s largest fund range with trading, rebates and fund information from 800 fund companies and 50,000 funds that MFEX cooperates with. MFEX is independent with full transparency between distributors and fund companies. Our distributors include, among others, KBC Bank, Société Générale, Keytrade Bank, Handelsbanken, Nordea, Carnegie, Pictet, Danske Bank, Citibank, Groupe Edmond de Rothschild and Bank of Singapore. MFEX has its head office in Stockholm and offices in Paris, Geneva, Singapore, and Umeå. MFEX’s primary regulator is the Swedish Financial Supervisory Authority (Finansinspektionen). For more information please see www.mfex.com

 

About Nordic Capital

Nordic Capital is a leading private equity investor in the Nordic region with a resolute commitment to creating stronger, sustainable businesses through operational improvement and transformative growth. Nordic Capital focuses on selected regions and sectors where it has deep experience and a proven track record. Core sectors are Healthcare, Technology & Payments, Financial Services, Industrial Goods & Services and Consumer & Retail, and key regions are the Nordics, Northern Europe, and globally for Healthcare. Since inception in 1989, Nordic Capital has invested EUR 11 bn through eight funds. The Nordic Capital Funds are based in Jersey and are advised by six advisory companies, which are based in Sweden, Denmark, Finland, Norway, Germany and the UK. For further information about Nordic Capital please see www.nordiccapital.com

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CDPQ and Ardian enter into exclusive negotiations to acquire a significant equity interest in Alvest

Ardian

Paris – September 6th 2017 – Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec, a leading institutional Canadian investor, and Ardian, the independent private investment company, have entered into exclusive negotiations with Sagard and Alvest’s Management team to acquire a significant stake in Alvest, the global leader in the production and distribution of airport Ground Support Equipment.

Sagard as well as the Management team led by Jean-Marie Fulconis, the CEO of the group, are to re-invest a significant amount in the company.

Alvest is a company dedicated to the design, manufacturing and distribution of technical products for the aviation industry. This includes aviation ground support equipment, spare parts and services, and technical adhesives and markings for the aerospace and industrial markets.

Alvest has more than 1,800 employees, a global proprietary sales and after-sales network, and operates 10 factories in the United States, Canada, France and China which together serve customers in over 130 countries.

Jean-Marie Fulconis, CEO of Alvest said: “Our team is proud and very pleased that long term investors of the calibre of CDPQ and Ardian are considering to partner with us, and that Sagard will continue to support us in our development. This vote of confidence continues to support our development ambitions, which remain focused around the quality of our products and services as well as the satisfaction of our customers.”

Stéphane Etroy, Executive Vice-President and Head of Private Equity, CDPQ, said: “Alvest’s management has been very successful in developing the company into a global leader in its sector. We are delighted with the idea of joining forces with Jean-Marie Fulconis and his team to support the company as it continues to expand its products and client base to new markets.”

Dominique Gaillard, Member of the Executive Committee of Ardian added: “We have known Alvest and its Management team for many years, having been shareholders from 2006 to 2013. We are very excited about the idea of supporting Alvest with our Ardian Co-Investment team in this new phase of its development and thank Jean-Marie Fulconis and his team for their trust.”

Frédéric Stolar, Founding Partner at Sagard said: “The journey of Alvest has been remarkable. The group has continued to consolidate its global leadership in the sector of airport ground support equipment by leveraging its innovative product portfolio and high quality aftermarket services. We have decided to keep a significant stake in Alvest since we are keen on continuing supporting this talented Management team which we feel close to.”

ABOUT CAISSE DE DÉPÔT ET PLACEMENT DU QUÉBEC

Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec (CDPQ) is a long-term institutional investor that manages funds primarily for public and parapublic pension and insurance plans. As at June 30, 2017, it held $286.5 billion in net assets. As one of Canada’s leading institutional fund managers, CDPQ invests globally in major financial markets, private equity, infrastructure, real estate and private debt. For more information, visit cdpq.com, follow us on Twitter @LaCDPQ or consult our Facebook or LinkedIn pages.

www.cdpq.com

ABOUT ARDIAN

Ardian, founded in 1996 and led by Dominique Senequier, is a premium independent private investment company with assets of US$62 billion managed or advised in Europe, North America and Asia. The company keeps entrepreneurship at its heart and delivers investment performance to its global investors while fueling growth in economies across the world. Ardian’s investment process embodies three values: excellence, loyalty and entrepreneurship. Ardian’s employees form the largest shareholder group. Over 80 percent of employees have invested in the company, which is a testament to their trust in the Management and the corporate strategy.

Ardian maintains a truly global network, with more than 470 employees working through twelve offices in Beijing, Frankfurt, Jersey, London, Luxembourg, Madrid, Milan, New York, Paris, San Francisco, Singapore and Zurich. The company offers its 580 investors a diversified choice of funds covering the full range of asset classes, including Ardian Funds of Funds (primary, early secondary and secondary), Ardian Private Debt, Ardian North America Direct Buyout, Direct Funds (Ardian Mid Cap Buyout, Ardian Expansion, Ardian Growth, Ardian Co-Investment), Ardian Infrastructure, Ardian Real Estate and customized mandate solutions with Ardian Mandates.

www.ardian.com

ABOUT SAGARD

Sagard is a French private equity fund supporting the development of mid-sized companies led by ambitious Management teams. Created in 2003 by the Desmarais family (Power Corporation of Canada), Sagard’s investor base comprises leading industrial families, and it has €2.5 billion in total assets under Management. Since 2004, Sagard and its Paris-based team of 10 professionals have invested in 30 industrial or services companies in France, Belgium and Switzerland.

The Sagard team involved on this transaction includes Frédéric Stolar, Rik Battey, Bérangère Barbe and Jérôme Triebel.

www.sagard.com

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AURELIUS sells Regain Polymers to Imerys

Aurelius

Munich, September 6, 2017 – AURELIUS Equity Opportunities SE & Co. KGaA (ISIN DE000A0JK2A8) has sold its subsidiary Regain Polymers, located in Allerton Bywater (Yorkshire/United Kingdom), to the Imerys Group, a world-leading supplier of mineral-based specialty solutions headquartered in France. Through this acquisition, Imerys will expand its Performance Additives Division, which develops high-quality products from recycled polymers. The parties have agreed to keep the purchase price confidential.

Regain Polymers is one of the leading reprocessors and recyclers of hard plastic waste in the United Kingdom. It makes its products according to the specifications of its customers in the automotive, environmental, garden products, packaging and construction sectors. The product range includes polymers such as high-density polyethylene (HDPE), polypropylene (PP), talc-filled polypropylene (PPT) and polystyrene (PS), as well as other customer-specific plastics.

Regain’s management is pleased to join a leading industrial group such as Imerys which will help to pursue the company’s development .

ABOUT Imerys Performance Additives

Imerys Performance Additives is a Divison of Imerys, the world leader in mineral-based specialty solutions for industry. With € 4.2 billion revenue and close to 16,000 employees, Imerys delivers high value-added, functional solutions to a great number of sectors, from processing industries to consumer goods. The Group draws on its knowledge of applications, technological expertise and its material science know-how to deliver resources based on beneficiation of its mineral resources, synthetic minerals and formulations. These contribute essential properties to customers’ products and performance, including refractoriness, hardness, conductivity, opacity, durability, purity, lightness, filtration, absorption and repellency. Imerys is determined to develop responsibly, in particular by fostering the emergence of environmentally-friendly products and processes.

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ACTIVA CAPITAL portfolio company MECADAQ announces the acquisitions of ARMOA

Activa Capital

Activa Capital, an independent French private equity firm, and Mecadaq, a leading provider of high precision manufacturing for the aerospace industry, announce the acquisition of Armoa, a company specialised in high precision machining. The acquisition takes place 18 months after the creation by Activa Capital of a consolidation platform in aerospace subcontracting.

This is the second significant build-up for Mecadaq, which already generates revenues of €32 million in aeronautic subcontracting, primarily in the area of machining of aero structure parts for civil aircraft. Financed with bank debt and additional capital provided by Activa Capital and Mecadaq’s management, the acquisition will increase the group’s revenues to over €50 million. Based outside Paris, in Chanteloup -les-Vignes, with revenues of €18 million, Armoa is a family-owned business that for 40 years has specialised in providing high precision machining of small and medium size aluminium aero structure parts.

The company’s excellence in this area has made it the manufacturer of choice for top clients in the aeronautics sector, such as Stelia (Airbus), Daher, and Thalès. “We are delighted to bring on board the operational excellence of the Armoa team,” said Julien Dubecq, President of Mecadaq.

“In addition to being complementary on industrial grounds, this acquisition reinforces our organisation by Business Unit (milling, turning, gear and spline machining, assembly).

Since our clients are constantly searching for ways to optimise their supply chain, this new industrial organisation will allow us to develop our commercial relationships with large clients in the aeronautic sector.” “This operation, the second step in our consolidation program undertaken in early 2016, will bring Mecadaq to the symbolic level of €50 million in revenues.

With four specialised sites in France and two abroad, Mecadaq has the critical size that will make it possible to reinforce its position among large partners and lients in aeronautics,” added Benjamin Moreau, Partner, Activa Capital.

Mecadaq Group is currently holding discussions with several other Players in aeronautics subcontracting. The priority is to target further acquisitions both in France and overseas, which could be financed with new acquisition lines put in place this summer.

 

About Mecadaq Group

Mecadaq is specialisedin the production and assembly of precision-made mechanical parts for the world’s leading aeronautical manufacturers. Prior to this build-up, Mecadaq had turnover of nearly €30 million, employs 300 professionals spread across its four sites: three sites in France (Tarnos, Pessac and Marignier) and one site in the US (California). To find out more about the company, please visit the website at Mecadaq.com or on Twitter@MecadaqGroup.

About Activa Capital

Activa Capital is a leading French mid-market private equity firm. Activa Capital manages over €500m of assets on behalf of a wide range of institutional investors. Activa Capital partners with ambitious mid-sized French companies, valued at €30m to €200m, seeking to accelerate their growth and their international footprint. Learn more about Activa Capital at activacapital.comor on Twitter @activacapital

 

 

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Innovation Industries And Samsung Ventures Investment Corporation Invest In TNO Spin-Off Nearfield Instruments B.V.

Innovation Industries

Innovation Industries announced today that it has closed an investment in Nearfield Instruments B.V.

Ultrafast High-Throughput Atomic Force Microscopy (HT-AFM) will keep Moore’s Law alive. Amsterdam, 5 September 2017. Innovation Industries announced today that it has closed an investment in Nearfield Instruments B.V. The investment will enable Nearfield Instruments to start the development of its first ultrafast High-Throughput Atomic Force Microscopy (HT-AFM) system for metrology of advanced integrated circuits (IC’s). Nearfield Instruments is a spin-off company of the Netherlands Organisation for applied-scientific Research TNO. Innovation Industries made this investment in syndication with Samsung Venture Investment Corporation.

Atomic scale dimensions
There’s a high demand for more powerful and lower power-consuming electronics for mobile devices and computer systems. To achieve new functionalities and to make optimum use of the available wafer space integrated circuit (IC) devices will shrink to atomic scale dimensions using novel, sensitive materials while at the same time being designed in a full three-dimensional configuration. In order to accommodate these trends in a technologically and economically viable way breakthroughs in metrology processes and equipment for IC device development and manufacturing are required. Without it, Moore’s Law would come to an end. Moore’s law is the observation that the number of transistors in a dense IC doubles approximately every two years.

Atomic Force Microscopy up to 1000x faster
Atomic Force Microscopy (AFM) is a well-known technology for imaging the smallest features and often applied in research. An AFM system uses an atomically-sharp probe to scan (but just not touch) the surface of the sample under investigation to sense the pattern on it. However, AFM was always considered too slow for industrial applications. Five years ago, TNO initiated the NOMI (Nano-Optomechatronics Instrumentation) program, in which scientific research is combined with application know-how, which has led to multiple improvements to this technology with the potential to make AFM up to 1000x faster than traditional AFM-technology. This makes Nearfield Instruments’ AFM-solution of prime interest for the semiconductor industry.

Dr. Hamed Sadeghian, principal scientist at TNO and scientific leader of NOMI: “This patented revolutionary architecture is based on parallelizing AFM. The parallelization is achieved by miniaturizing the AFM and operating many of them simultaneously. This instrument has the advantage that each miniaturized AFM can be operated independently that allows one to measure several physical parameters simultaneously; while one mini AFM measures nano-scale topography, another instrument can measure mechanical, electrical, or thermal properties, making it a lab-on-an-instrument. The key to this was to miniaturize AFM to size of a match box to allow achieving very high measurement bandwidth, while achieving very high stability of nano-imaging by shortening the metrology loop[1].

Innovation Industries’ second investment
Innovation Industries made this investment to accelerate the market introduction of Nearfield’s High-Throughput AFM. Within the next few years, Nearfield Instruments will develop HT-AFM to a viable product for the semiconductor market. General Partner at Innovation Industries, Nard Sintenie comments: “We are very positive about the potentiality of Nearfield’s product and technology. Through our collaboration with Samsung Venture Investment Corporation we will do our best to help the company and its team to realize its strategy to help the semiconductor industry in its continuous strive towards even more powerful and lower power-consuming electronics.”

 

‍About Innovation Industries
Innovation Industries [2] is a specialist independent hightech VC fund, targeting Dutch companies that are developing commercially promising products and technologies in attractive technology fields like: nano/microtechnologies, semiconductors & integrated photonics, ICT & (cyber) security, clean technology, Food & Agro technology and medical technology (medical devices & diagnostics).

Contacts:
Nard Sintenie, General Partner
ns@innovationindustries.com
+31610011072

Harm de Vries, General Partner
hv@innovationindustries.com
+31653216339

About Samsung Venture Investment Corporation
Samsung Venture Investment Corporation manages investment and investment-related activities for Samsung affiliate companies, including Samsung Electronics. The investment mandate for Samsung Venture Investment Corporation tracks closely to the strategic priorities of Samsung affiliate companies’ core operating divisions, and encompasses investments in semiconductors, displays, telecommunications, and consumer electronics.

About TNO
The Netherlands Organization for Applied Scientific Research (TNO) is an independent research organization. We connect people and knowledge to create innovations that boost the sustainable competitive strength of industry and well-being of society. This is our mission and it is what drives us, the over 3,000 professionals at TNO, in our work every day. We work in collaboration with partners and focus on five transitions that we have identified together with our stakeholders. TNO is established by law and exists as a legal entity by public law. The TNO-law gives us a number of special tasks and frameworks and linking it to specific conditions under which we have to perform our work. Based on these preconditions, we create independent and reliable solutions to the grand challenges our societies face.

Contact:
Maarten Lortzer
maarten.lortzer@tno.nl
+31888660888

About Nearfield Instruments B.V.
Please refer to the following movie.

Contact:
Roland van Vliet (CEO)
roland.vanvliet@nearfieldinstruments.com

[1] Sadeghian et al., High-throughput atomic force microscopes operating in parallel, Review of Scientific Instruments 88, 033703 (2017).

[2] The Innovation Industries is supported by InnovFin Equity, with the financial backing of the European Union under Horizon 2020 Financial Instruments and the European Fund for Strategic Investments (EFSI) set up under the Investment Plan for Europe. The purpose of EFSI is to help support financing and implementing productive investments in the European Union and to ensure increased access to financing (or the relevant translation).

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