DGAP-News

German Startups Group Berlin GmbH & Co. KGaA: German Startups Group records multiple positive developments in shareholding portfolio in the first half of 2016 - Seite 2

already been profitable since the first full year of operation and was even
able to more than double its net profit in 2015. Also in the first quarter
of 2016, German Startups Group was profitable and predicts this positive
trend will continue.

Within its minority holdings German Startups Group has recorded two company
mergers amongst others. The core holding Auctionata, which according to its
own records is the worldwide largest online auction house for art and
luxury goods, has merged with the US online auction house Paddle8. The
resulting company, according to its own records, counts more than 130
million Euros in gross merchandise value and almost 800.000 registered
users. It is now one of the ten largest auctioneers in the world outside of
China and is one of the fastest growing companies in the industry. The
merger of the two online auction houses will allow not only a category-wide
consolidation, but also a geographic market consolidation through their
complementary sales processes and locations in Europe and the USA. German
Startups Group signed a binding preliminary contract for the purchase of
these shares in March, which was recently finalised and executed.

The Munich startup ePetWorld has merged with its competitor pets Premium to
create the new company Alphapet Ventures GmbH under one roof and to become
one of the leading independent online players in the premium pet supplies
market in Germany. ePetWorld, with its brands hundeland.de and
katzenland.de, and pets Premium, with petspremium.de and leinentausch.de,
achieve a combined mid double-digit million-sum in revenue and have half a
million customers. With this merger the conditions for further expansion
into Europe have been accomplished.

Exozet has continued to record positive development since German Startups
Group acquired its majority holding in the company in mid-2015. As such,
Exozet was able to win the largest individual contract in its history at
the end of 2015. The forecasted revenue for Exozet in the first half of
2016 will be at least 30% higher than in the first half of the previous
year, according to preliminary estimates.

SoundCloud, one of German Startups Group's core holdings, has won another
noteworthy investor with its investment from Twitter. According to media
reports, Twitter invested approximately 70 million Dollars for its stake,
even after speculations were made in 2014 of possible purchase intentions.
Additionally, SoundCloud launched several new significant products, such as
advertising and subscription services that will advance the monetisation