Chase Links with Formus to Fund Arcis Start-Up

Chase Capital Partners (CCP) in September announced a “significant” investment alongside Formus Communications Inc. in Arcis Media.Com Management, a German start-up facilities-based telecommunications company.

Arcis has been awarded national and regional licences to provide fixed and mobile telecommunications throughout Germany and has also applied for frequencies that would enable the company to operate a Local Multipoint Distribution Service system.

Set up in 1997, Arcis has developed a strategic plan and deployment programme that position the company as a competitive local access provider in all the key regions in Germany, with an infrastructure that will cover more than 47 million of the population.

The company will begin offering services to the public later this year. Once its fixed line facilities are operational, Arcis intends to diversify into mobile telephony and broadband wireless data services.

Arcis was founded by a group of senior telecommunications executives with backing from Dr Axel Diekmann, a major shareholder in the Verlagsgruppe Passau publishing group, and Dr Michael Hnig, a Munich-based entrepreneur. The exact size of CCP and Formus’s investments was not disclosed but Georg Stratenwerth of CCP said Arcis had a post-investment valuation of the order of DM50 million (ecu 25 million). Formus and CCP together hold a controlling stake in the company.

CCP is one of the principal investors in Formus, a dedicated media investment fund established in 1996.