High-Tech Gruenderfonds (HTGF), a German state and corporate-backed early-stage investment firm, has sold its stakes in two portfolio companies.
Kontem, a spin-off of the Max Planck Society and its affiliated research centre Caesar, which develops electron microscopes, was taken over by microscopy technology company FEI Company, while HTGF sold its stake in energy savings company LEDexchange at a profit to an undisclosed private investor during the course of LEDexchange’s latest financing round.
HTGF invested in LEDexchange in 2012 before further funding came in from WFT in Rhineland-Palatinate.
Guillem Sague, the investment manager at HTGF responsible for the LEDexchange investment, said: “We are very happy, that already after 18 months we’ve been able to realise a profitable exit from this investment. The company and the market have proven that there is a strong need for LED lamps.”
HTGF invested in Kontem in April 2012, indicating a similar hold period to LEDexchange. The portfolio company was incorporated in 2011 after gaining support from the German Federal Ministry of Economics and Technology through its Exist Forschungstransfer grant.
The research on the underlying technology was conducted at the Max Planck Institute for Biophysics in Frankfurt and further development at Caesar turned it into a marketable product that is currently in the customer test period.