Ventech invests in Picanova

French firm Ventech has invested in Germany-based Picanova, which manufactures a broad range of fully customized well decor products. To date, Picanova was financed by Cologne, Germany-based DuMont Ventures.

Press Release

French innovation investor Ventech SA with a focus on early growth opportunities in Europe’s digital economy provides further equity to fuel Picanova`s international expansion.

Picanova GmbH, headquartered in Cologne/Germany with offices and production facilities in USA, China and Baltics specializes on the manufacturing of a broad range of fully customized wall decor products such as canvas and aluminium prints, photo wallpapers as well as photo merchandising products like photobooks. To date the company was only financed by Cologne based investor DuMont Venture who joined the founders at the very beginning.

Already serving customers in more than 170 countries, Picanova is poised to further grow their international reach while extending the offered range of high quality tailored home decoration and photo fun products. The company integrates advanced ecommerce tools with a complex and wholly owned global supply chain in order to provide their customers an easy-to-use self-service at extremely competitive price points. Customers can choose between Picanova’s rapidly growing online photo-galleries and their own private photos which after upload will be printed in one of their four global manufacturing sites under a variety of options. Picanova’s flexibility in delivering individual photo products within days provides customers with a wide range of options regarding sizes, materials, colours and frames and hence serves as a perfect example of state-of-the art web-based mass-customization.

While serving their B2C-customers directly through dedicated web-shops, Picanova also delivers bespoke solutions to large business customers and B2B2C-channel-partners.

Launching their custom photobook, postcard and wall decor app in early 2014 will cater to the growing demand from mobile users. Daniel Mühlbauer, CEO and founder of Picanova, has ambitious plans: “Picanova is the fastest growing custom wall decor company and a global leader not only in terms of manufacturing capacity. We manufacture up to 30.000 products per day and will continue to grow through new markets, new channels and new innovative products. We believe to have found in Ventech an ideal partner to support us in achieving our ambitious goals while we keep on striving for getting a little better every day. ”

Christian Claussen, General Partner at Ventech, is impressed with the company’s execution power: “We are really happy to support a great entrepreneurial team showing exactly the kind of complementary skills and pragmatic business sense that we are constantly seeking in our portfolio investments. Picanova is a hidden champion in a fast growing market segment and successfully competes on the basis of operational excellence and smart supply chain management.”

Picanova started in 2006 as a single product company exclusively addressing the German market. Since then the company has rapidly evolved into an international market leader offering a comprehensive range of products. Despite its fast business expansion, Picanova reached profitability very early on.

As Mühlbauer states: ”The fact that we did not have huge funding from the start forced us to build the business on the pillars of constant cost- and process optimization which has made us extremely competitive. This success is the result of the enthusiasm and commitment of our 250+ team collaborating across three continents on a 24/7 basis, giving their very best during the super-charged Xmas-season. I could not think of any better team and feel honoured to be a part of it!” Jörg Binnenbrücker, former Managing Director of DuMont Venture and Founding Partner of Capnamic Ventures: “We invested in a very early stage of the company because we had confidence in the know-how and execution skills of the founders. Now we are happy to join forces with Ventech to continue the success story of Picanova.”

PICANOVA: Picanova is one of the world’s leading manufacturers of individualized wall decoration products such as canvas and aluminum prints and photo merchandising products like photo-books. Reaching customers in more than 170 countries through over 30 internet platforms, the company fully controls a wholly owned supply chain through its production facilities in Europe, North America and Asia, engendering incomparable quality and prices for its customers. As a rapidly expanding e-commerce company, Picanova has built up an unparalleled global presence, counting among its corporate partners global brand leaders and industry giants. With sales in the millions of units each year, Picanova brings walls in homes and offices all around the world to life.

VENTECH: Ventech announced the first close of its €100 million-large fourth fund Ventech Capital F in 2012. Since 1998, Ventech has been partnering with the best entrepreneurs in Digital Economy & Technology (investing in software, hardware and communication, e-commerce, media and services). With a total of more than €400 million raised, Ventech selects and finances the most ambitious European projects and backs them to gain a global leadership position. Thanks to its sister company Ventech China, operating out of Beijing, Ventech is able to help European portfolio companies in their development in Asia, and investing locally through a dedicated fund. Ventech accounts for more than 50 exits with 7 IPOs, including Genesys, Alapage, Altitude Telecom, MeilleurTaux, Musiwave… For more information: www.ventechvc.com

DUMONT VENTURE / CAPNAMIC VENTURES: Capnamic Ventures is a Multi-Company / Multi-Family Office Venture Capital Fund with offices in Cologne and Berlin. Capnamic focuses on business models along the digital value chain and invests with a focus on consumer and prosumer oriented businesses that can be scaled and distributed through digital media. This includes growth markets such as Mobile, E-Commerce, Gaming, Payment, Advertising or Software as a Service. The Capnamic Team combines expertise from over 100 investments and 30 years of investment experience. In addition to its own fund Capnamic Ventures is managing the entire DuMont Venture portfolio (the investment vehicle of Mediengruppe M.DuMont Schauberg) with currently over 20 portfolio companies. For additional information visit www.capnamic.de

TRANSACTION SERVICE PROVIDERS:
 Legal adviser to the investors: BMH Bräutigam & Partners, Berlin, Germany
 Financial due diligence for the investors: Leinauer Müller & Partner, Munich, Germany
 Legal adviser to the shareholders: Rödl & Partner, Nürnberg, Germany
 Corporate finance adviser to the shareholders: CatCap GmbH, Hamburg, Germany