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Canadian Bank of Commerce, CIBC Innovation Banking entered into a EUR 35 million growth capital financing with Copenhagen-based Ageras Group.
Carsted Rosenberg acted as lead counsel for Ageras Group on EUR 35,000,000 growth financing facility provided by CIBC to Ageras. The Carsted Rosenberg team was led by Michael Rosenberg and Andreas Tamasauskas and assisted in Finland by Waselius & Wist, in the Netherlands by Keijser van der Velden, and in the United States of America by Clifford Chance, New York. Significantly, Carsted Rosenberg acted both as overall lead counsel and as English and Danish counsel for the borrower.
CIBC was advised by Dentons UK as lead counsel, Dentons, Amsterdam for the Netherlands, Hannes Snellman for Finland and Gorrissen Federspiel for Denmark and Sidley Austin Palo Alto for the United States of America. Significantly, the transaction represented the first Nordic transaction for CIBC Innovation Banking since establishing a presence in the United Kingdom. In addition to the growth capital facility provided by CIBC Innovation Banking, Ageras Group is also backed by Investcorp, London, Rabobank via Rabo Frontier Ventures, and by Luxor Capital via Lugard Road Capital, among other high-end investors.
After launching in 2012 as a marketplace for small business owners to find accountants and legal advisers, Ageras has expanded far beyond, venturing into the EUR 420 billion market for financial tech with its suite of software as a service offering to SMEs in Europe and North America. The Ageras solution to SMEs is best described as a financial and accounting supermarket providing a financial cockpit for small businesses with banking, accounting, invoicing, and payroll software trusted by over 100,000 paying customers in the Northern hemisphere.
“CIBC Innovation Banking’s investment will help us focus on the mission: acquiring companies whose tech can fit into—and enrich—Ageras’ one-and-done financial cockpit for small businesses. In the last year, we’ve acquired and added three companies to our product offering. Now, with CIBC Innovation Banking’s €35m investment, we’ll look to buy more, especially companies that have developed best-in-class products that either cement our position in one market or add mission-critical features that we can offer to all existing customers.” Ageras Co-founder and CEO Rico Andersen.
About Ageras Group
Ageras’ vision is to enable success for small businesses by simplifying their administration. By integrating its solutions into a single “cockpit” for invoicing, accounting, payroll and banking, it enables entrepreneurs to focus on running their businesses. Ageras began as the online marketplace Ageras.com (matching SMEs with accountants) and has expanded into a 350-person company offering a complete ecosystem of tools and services for SMEs. Today, Ageras Group offers cloud-based accounting software through the products Zervant, Billy and Tellow, banking through Kontist and payroll software through Salary. In late 2021, the group launched an embedded fintech service providing financing options to its customers directly through its software. Ageras’ solutions have been used by more than 1 million small businesses across Europe and the U.S. For more information, visit www.ageras.group.
About CIBC Innovation Banking
CIBC Innovation Banking delivers strategic advice, cash management and funding to innovation companies across North America, the UK, and select European countries at each stage of their business cycle, from start up to IPO and beyond. With offices in Atlanta, Austin, Boston, Chicago, Denver, London, Menlo Park, Montreal, New York, Reston, Seattle, Toronto and Vancouver, the team has extensive experience and a strong, collaborative approach that extends across CIBC’s commercial banking and capital markets businesses.
Further Information
For further information on how Carsted Rosenberg can assist your company on cross-border financing transactions, please contact any of Michael Rosenberg or Andreas Tamasauskas for an evaluation. Carsted Rosenberg is a specialist international law firm with a focus on cross-border banking & finance, capital markets, mergers & acquisitions and corporate & commercial matters. Carsted Rosenberg provides high-end legal counsel services in connection with large-scale cross-border transactions with a particular focus on the Danish market. Our clients rely on us for pragmatic advice and transactional excellence. We specialise in matters that require transactional expertise, considerable cross-border experience and a high degree of proficiency and efficiency.