Companisto Annual Review 2017

The eventful year of 2017 is coming to a close. Reason enough for us to look back on what we have accomplished so far and how Companisto has developed in the past year. We will focus particularly on various aspects of the financing rounds and on the value development of the portfolio companies. All data refer to the time period between 1 January 2017 and 21 December 2017.

Financing rounds and volume

In 2017, 24 financing rounds were conducted on Companisto. Of these, 20 were successful, meaning that they reached the financing threshold of EUR 100,000. The startups 360living, FitW, and grünversichert failed to reach this threshold, as did the interim financing for LUUV. Of the 20 successful campaigns, only 16 have been concluded by year-end; four of the financing rounds are running into the New Year.

The successfully funded startups this year are: Kumpan, Beach-Inspector, Bier Deluxe, Buddy-Watcher, Cogia, ambico, golf4you, Diversicon (impact loan), Car2Ad, copaltec, HACCP24, Meine Spielzeugkiste (third Companisto financing), NDI AG (Replicate system), Horando (venture loan), ASE, Medipee, iTravel, Cringle (second Companisto financing), Ameria (second Companisto financing), and Weissenhaus (second Companisto financing). In the previous year, 28 campaigns were conducted on Companisto, of which one failed.

Between 1 January and 21 December 2017, capital in sum of EUR 10.63 million was successfully raised. As a result, we were able to confirm the previous year’s positive trend and have already exceeded the previous year's level 10 days before the end of the year. In 2016, we raised a total of EUR 10.47 million in capital for startups and growth companies.

The luxury resort Weissenhaus completed the largest financing round of the year 2017 with a volume of EUR 2 million. NDI AG comes in second place as of the reporting date with a total volume of nearly EUR 1.7 million. Ameria’s financing round with a volume of EUR 1.4 million comes in third place. The quickest financing rounds were run by Ameria (startup participation) and Horando (venture loan). Ameria maxed out at EUR 1.4 million within just ten days, while Horando reached its goal of EUR 500,000 within 32 days.

The majority of startups and growth companies in 2017 are based in Berlin (nine companies). Baden-Wuerttemberg came in second with six startups. Three companies came from North Rhine-Westphalia, while Bavaria, Hesse, Rhineland-Palatinate, Schleswig-Holstein, Hamburg and Lower Austria were represented by one startup each. Unfortunately, there were only two female founders among the founding teams, namely Stefanie Hartwig (copaltec) and Lea Ellermeier (NDI AG).

Investors, payouts, and jobs

As of the reporting date, the financing round that reached the most investors was NDI AG with the participation of 1,580 Companists. In second place was Meine Spielzeugkiste’s third financing round with 1,408 Companists. Third place was Kumpan with 1,291 Companists. An average of 740 Companists participated in each financing round with an average investment sum of nearly EUR 718.

In 2017, Companists received payout in sum of EUR 282,286. The amount consists of fixed interest payments and profit participation on generated earnings. A total of EUR 278,514 interest was paid out for venture loans and EUR 3,772 for profit participation. The financing campaigns run on Companisto created and maintained 190 new jobs. Not included are the follow-up financing rounds of Ameria, Meine Spielzeugkiste, Weissenhaus, and Cringle, as these companies already had a large number of employees at the time of their second and third financing rounds on Companisto. If one takes into account that these follow-up financing arrangements have also created jobs, the number of jobs created is even higher than 200.

Follow-up financing and insolvencies

 Follow-up financing is particularly important for early-stage companies in order to remain on course for growth. Follow-up financing is any form of funding that takes place during or after a financing round at Companisto. This includes angel investments, VC investments and subsidies, as well as loans, capital increases, or subsequent equity crowdfunding campaigns.

 In 2017, 14 companies in our portfolio secured follow-up financing. Among these were JaimieJacobs, Mineko, golf4you, Mornin'Glory, Kumpan, TradeMachines, Beach-Inspector, LUUV, copaltec, Car2Ad, Ameria, Meine Spielzeugkiste, Cringle (2x), and AMG Sicherheitstechnik. Unfortunately, a few startups had to go out of business. By the reporting date, nine startups had to file for insolvency or liquidation. Among these are Panono, TripRebel, EN3, Tame, Schnuff&Co, Knicket, food4fans, poqit.berlin and Homefort.

Company value and investment value

 The development of company value represents the company value increase of all startups financed on Companisto since completion of their respective equity crowdfunding rounds. To determine the development of company value, one compares the startup’s company valuation at the time of the equity crowdfunding round with the current valuation determined at the most recent financing round.

 As the current company values are non-public data from investment contracts that are subject to confidentiality, the company values cannot be broken down for the individual startups; they can only be published for the all the startups as a whole. The cumulative company valuation of all portfolio companies was EUR 356.5 million on the date of reporting. Company valuation of the portfolio in the previous year was EUR 266.4 million. There has thus been an increase of 33.81% in comparison to the previous year. The increase in value is a result of higher company valuations that were achieved within the scope of startups’ follow-up financing through angel investors or VC affiliated associations, and with the startups added to the portfolio in 2017.

 Not only the total value of startups financed on Companisto increased over the year, the total investment value did as well. The total investment value is the value of the entire holdings held by all Companists as a whole. It specifies the value of the Companists' holdings in the startups. The development of the total investment value provides information on how the values of all investments on Companisto have developed. In this way, it illustrates the performance of the company's performance for all companions. However, it does not indicate the average performance of the investment opportunities offered.

 Companisto provided a total of EUR 46.7 million in capital to startups and growth companies by the reporting date. If inactive capital (insolvencies, liquidations, and exits) is deducted from this figure, the total value of all active participations at the end of 2017 is approximately EUR 39.4 million. In the previous year, the value of active participations was only EUR 32.1 million. This represents a value increase of 22.7 % compared to the previous year.

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