25 When presenting new or disrupting business models efficiently educating investors is crucial in order to attract as many interested parties as possible For many corporates and financial investors influencer marketing is still a black box They are fascinated by the high potential of this new marketing channel however struggle with the current lack of long term experience says Michael Moritz Managing Partner at Carlsquare who also advised on the sale of fitvia and many other transactions for influencer based e commerce companies before Arguably it was key to give potential investors the utmost possible comfort in terms of sustainable profitability Profitability is a good keyword since its founding fitvia did not require any external funding but was profitable in the first year of operations already The company sells healthy food beverages which are promoted by social media influencers and is the German pioneer in this industry After the foundation the company steadily increased its business by product and geographical expansion furthermore a new cosmetics brand bellavia was launched in late 2018 Given the disruptive growth the founder and CEO Sebastian Merkhoffer soon realised that joining forces with a strategic partner would be key to take the next envisaged growth step and therefore kicked off an M A process After the successful sale of competitor Invincible Brands in early 2018 Carlsquare was the partner of choice to credibly convey fitvia s growth drivers to investors During the preparation phase particular emphasis was put on a clean and concise documentation of the company s key commercial parameters What followed was a focused sales process Carlsquare approached both private equity and strategic buyers who should be interested in the firm s unrivalled knowledge of the influencer marketing channel After intensive meetings and negotiations Carlsquare identified Dermapharm Holding SE an OTC pharma company with EUR 500m sales nearby Munich as the ideal partner Dermapharm quickly realised the sales synergies potential with fitvia and executed the transaction at full speed Impressed by the transaction and the new strategic partner to further develop the company fitvia s CEO and founder Sebastian Merkhoffer noted Carlsquare has an excellent understanding of the challenges of high growth companies in the e commerce space It is therefore ideally placed to market influencer and performance marketing driven models They have access to the relevant financial investors and the strategic players in superfoods or cosmetics and they know what it takes to get a great deal across the finishing line

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