META Ventures, the majority owner of META Ingenium, acquires 49%, its minority equity stake, from the Republic of Slovenia.
The acquisition represents the final outcome of the public tender. Slovenian Sovereign Holding (SSH or Slovenski državni holding, SDH) organised and published it at the end of February 2020.
This deal confirms the good relations in the 10-year partnership in META Ingenium. META Ventures, who remains at the same time the sole shareholder of the VC and its management company, will continue to manage four active investments out of 10 early-stage firms initially making part of the portfolio with the total invested value of just over 8 million euro. These include equity stakes in Apartmaji,com, DS Meritve, ORPE, a part of OR Productivity, UK, and BIA Separations, the latter one being the most attractive investment in the portfolio.
Purchase price and other details of the deal between META Ventures and SSH remain confidential.
“An opportunity to keep supporting the most prosperous firms”
“We are pleased that we have found a sound agreement with the SSH”, explained Luigi Amati, CEO of META Ventures. “We are thankful to SSH and SEF (Slovenian Entrepreneurship Fund, or SPS, Slovenski podjetniški sklad) for their 10-year partnership. The deal gives an opportunity to us to continue to support the most prosperous firms in the portfolio and maximise the returns at exits. We are confident that the active companies in the portfolio will demonstrate their agility in this uncertain period and continue to grow further.”
In 2019, the portfolio companies made nearly 15 million euro in revenues with the chances to sustainably improve performance, mostly thanks to the contribution of BIA Separations.
“We are eager to demonstrate what early-stage investors and venture capital can do to contribute to innovation, job creation and sustainable growth through the performance of our invested companies, driven by extraordinary entrepreneurs,” also emphasised Amati.
META Ventures
META Ventures is an investment company, specialised in early-stage equity financing what represents one of three core businesses of META a group providing innovation services across europe. It has so far invested more than 100 million euro in over 100 high-growth startups across Europe. META, established in Rome, Italy, more than 27 years ago has its operating seat in Brussels and is strongly engaged in Advisory, helping clients as diverse as individual cities or the European Commission develop better policies and programmes for promoting innovation and fostering startups. META’s third arm, Academy, deals with achieving impact from a research activity, particularly by leveraging upon research projects results and by conceiving, launching and growing knowledge-intensive high growth companies.
META has been present in Slovenia for more than two decades and currently manages funds also in Italy and Poland.
See here for more information on META Group: www.meta.group.com .
Further information and contact: Jurij Giacomelli, investment manager, MI, j.giacomelli@meta-group.com