Berlin/Bad Homburg v.d.H., January 23, 2017 – Creathor Venture, one of the leading European venture capital firms,together withVC FondsTechnologie Berlin, managed by IBB Beteiligungsgesellschaft, joins Berlin high-tech start-up R3 Communications as a partner. The investment is part of a pre-seriesA financing round.
R3 Communications, founded in July 2015, develops ultra-reliable real-time communication systems that are predominantly used in industry 4.0 and internet-of-things applications. R3’s proprietary technology called EchoRing™ circumvents the problems of common wireless communication systems (deficient transmission reliability, latency, and co-existence). It supersedes the expensive, inflexible and complex use of cables in a vast number of scenarios. First cooperation agreements with well-known industry corporations have already been reached.
„With factories becoming smart and flexible, tethered communication will quickly reach the boundaries of functionality. At the same time, existing wireless communication solutions are not ready to take over, as their reliability and latency performance does not suffice industry requirements. Therefore, the need for reliable wireless communication systems that cope with today’s real-time challenges will constantly rise“, explains Dr. Mathias Bohge, founder and managing director at R3 Communications. Today, Berlin electronics company Schleicher Electronic already bases its radio product development onEchoRing™ technology. Bohge’smanaging director colleague Florian Bonanati adds: “Moreover, we have secured promising cooperation projects with worldwide market leaders in the industrial automation sector as well as in the automotive and aviation industry. With Creathor and IBB Beteiligungsgesellschaft on board we have now the possibility to speed things up while making our technology ready for themarket.“
Gert Köhler, Managing Partner at Creathor Venture,comments: „We are convinced of R3 Communications‘ innovative solution and see great potential for diverse industrial application areas where transfer rate and absolute reliability is of paramount importance, especially in automation, but also in connected vehicles of all kind. We believe that Germany will lead the way when it comes to the development of intelligent industry applications. R3 Communications is well on the way to becoming a very important player in this segment. With the investment, we also strengthen our commitment in the deep tech area.” As a lead investor, Creathor’s management has supported numerous high-tech companies with regard to growth and internationalisation and has accomplished excellent exits with these investments in the past. Some examples include Micronas (developer and manufacturer of semiconductor-based sensor and IC system solutions for automotive and industrial electronics) and InfoVista (provider of performance orchestration solutions for effective networks and successful IT transformations).
“The promising cooperations with industry partners and the strong integration in the academia are important success factors for R3 communications. Berlin has developed a competitive ecosystem for wireless technologies. R3 has the ability to become an important part of it. We are very optimistic, that we are able to write another success story for the regional economy”, mentions Clemens Kabel, investment director at IBB Beteiligungsgesellschaft.
Christian Weniger, investment manager at Creathor Venture, adds: “It is not only R3 Communications’ proprietary technology that has convinced us, but also the complementary team of founders with their exceptional experience in both research and development and management and consulting.”
About Creathor Venture
As a leading pan-European Venture Capital firm, Creathor Venture invests in technology-oriented companies and entrepreneurs. Creathor Venture focuses on mobile, digital media, cloud technology, artificial intelligence, internet of things, sharing economy, fintech. In the life science sector, we invest in selected areas such as precision medicine, enabling platforms, medtech and digital health. Regional focus is on Germany, Switzerland, Austria, France and the Nordics. The management team of Creathor Venture consists of the CEO Dr. Gert Köhler, Karlheinz Schmelig, Cédric Köhler and Dr. Aristotelis Nastos. The team has been investing successfully in the early-stage venture capital business for 30 years. During that time, the team has built more than 200 technology companies successfully, conducted more than 20 international IPOs and has achieved exceptional returns for fund investors and the financed entrepreneurs in the past, all in the position as lead investor. The current portfolio of more than 30 companies is actively supported in development, growth and internationalization by a team of 19 staff. Creathor Venture manages funds of more than EUR 220 million and holds offices in Bad Homburg (Frankfurt), Tutzing (Munich), Cologne, Zurich and Stockholm. As the largest investor in Creathor’s funds, the management underlines its entrepreneurial orientation.
About IBB Beteiligungsgesellschaft
IBB Beteiligungsgesellschaft (www.ibb-bet.de) provides venture capital to innovative Berlin-based companies and has established itself as a market leader in the field of early stage financing in Germany. The funds are used primarily for the development and market launch of innovative products or services, as well as for business concepts of creative industries. Currently two of the funds managed by the IBB Beteiligungsgesellschaft are in the investment phase, the VC Fonds Technologie Berlin II with a fund size of 60 million euros and the VC Fonds Kreativwirtschaft Berlin II with a fund size of 40 million euros. Both VC funds are financed by means of the Investitionsbank Berlin (IBB) and the European Fund for Regional Development (EFRE) administered by the State Berlin. Since 1997 the IBB Beteiligungsgesellschaft, in consortia with partners, has made 1.25 billion euros available to creative and technology-orientated companies; thereof, the portion invested by IBB Beteiligungsgesellschaft itself, as lead, co-lead or co-investor, was approximately 173 million euros.
About R3 Communications
The R3 – Reliable Realtime Radio Communications GmbH (R3 Communications) was founded in July 2015 as a spin-off from two leading European engineering universities. The company’s focus is on research, development, production and sales/distribution of ultra-reliable real-time wireless communication systems and solutions. Current research and development activities include internet-of-things/industry4.0 Smart Factory applications, as well as automotive and aerospace scenarios. The founding team consists of a carefully chosen mixture of engineering and business experts – including machine-to-machine communication professor James Gross (KTH Stockholm, Sweden) – that altogether relies on more than 25 years of scientific/engineering and more than 10 years of top management consulting experience. R3 Communications’ EchoRing™ system has recently gained major attention for winning IEEE/VDE Best Demo/Best Software Awards, as well as the 2015 edition of the Berlin Deep-Tech-Award, awarded by the city of Berlin, Germany.