DN Capital and High-Tech Gründerfonds invest into windeln.de

DN Capital and High-Tech Gründerfonds today announced their investment in windeln.de, a baby care specialty website which will launch in September 2010. In addition to the two lead investors, the financing round was complemented by business angels and members of the management team.

Users will be able to buy diapering products as well as baby food and formula, bath and skin care products and a large product range around feeding and nursing. The site will also offer many products needed during pregnancy and breast feeding, and a dedicated “bio baby” category to cater for the growing awareness and demand for organic products. windeln.de will offer more than 80 leading brands, including Pampers, HiPP, Avent, Nuk und Penaten.

“windeln.de is positioned to become Germany’s largest online shop for baby care products”, says Founder Konstantin Urban. “At launch, we will already offer more than 3,300 different products for the daily need of babies and mothers.” Alexander Brand, Founder and Managing Director at windeln.de adds: “We are very optimistic about the launch, and we are looking forward to going live shortly. Following intensive planning and preparation, we are confident to deliver outstanding usability, fast delivery and excellent customer service.”

Urban’s last position was managing director of Holtzbrink Ventures, before he founded Urban-Brand GmbH, the company behind windeln.de with Alexander Brand. Brand was previously Senior Vice President at Siemens Enterprise Communications and founded 12snap AG. The third founder of windeln.de is Dagmar Mahnel who has a background at Wrigley and Procter & Gamble.

Logistics are handled by an experienced service provider in Hallbergmoos near Munich, Germany. Two seasoned web professionals, Oliver Zenglein and Carsten Jaensch, will complement the management team with their expertise in online marketing and technology.

Nenad Marovac, Managing Partner at DN Capital, comments: “The baby care market is very attractive and has proven to be a success for experienced online retailers in the US. The professional design of windeln.de, its large product offering as well as the experience and quality of the management team made our decision to invest very straightforward.”

“We expect a strong demand for baby goods to be delivered quickly and reliably to customers at their home. We currently do not see any other comparable concept in the German market which enables an equally fully comprehensive provision of baby products via the Internet”, says Dr. Björn Momsen, Investment Manager at HTGF.

Contact:
Urban-Brand GmbH
Alexander Brand
Founder and Managing Director
Machtlfinger Str. 1
81379 München
Deutschland
Phone: +49 89 72446666
alexander.brand@urban-brand.de
www.windeln.de

About DN Capital
DN Capital is a media and technology growth capital and early stage investor with offices in London and Palo Alto.  DN Capital’s objective is to identify, invest in and actively support media and technology companies with the potential to be global leaders.  Portfolio companies include Shazam Entertainment, Endeca Technologies, Datanomic, OLX, Digital Chocolate and Tbricks. The professionals at DN Capital bring over 50 years of private equity experience to their investments, and actively work with portfolio companies to steward their growth through the various stages of development.  Additional information about the firm and its portfolio companies can be found on its web site, www.dncapital.com.

Contact:
Shona Prendergast, Robert Roessler
Penrose Financial
Phone: +44 020 77864888
DNCapital@penrose.co.uk

About High-Tech Gründerfonds
High-Tech Gründerfonds invests venture capital in young, high-opportunity technological companies implementing promising research results in an entrepreneurial manner. The start-up companies are planned to lead their R&D projects to the production of a prototype or a “proof of concepts” or market launch by means of the seed financing of up to 500k EUR. The High-Tech Gründerfonds has a fund volume of around 272m EUR. Investors of the public-private partnership are the Federal Ministry for Economics and Technology, the KfW bank group as well as the six industrial groups BASF, Deutsche Telekom, Siemens, Robert Bosch, Daimler and Carl Zeiss.

Contact:
High-Tech Gründerfonds Management GmbH
Dr. Björn Momsen
Senior Investmentmanager
Ludwig-Erhard-Allee 2
53175 Bonn, Germany
Phone: +49 228 96568500
Fax: +49 228 96568550
info@high-tech-gruenderfonds.de
www.high-tech-gruenderfonds.de