Drake Star Partners Advises Onefit On Its Merger With Urban Sports Club
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Year
August/2019
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Sector
Consumer & Retail Tech Digital Media SportsTech and Fitness
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Our Mission
Exclusive Financial Advisor to OneFit
AMSTERDAM | BERLIN | August 8, 2019 – OneFit, a leading sports and fitness platform in Europe, has successfully joined forces with its German peer, Urban Sports Club. Following the merger, OneFit and Urban Sports Club will become a European market leader in the growing sector of sports and fitness marketplaces. Urban Sports Club and OneFit expect the transaction to become effective in August 2019. Drake Star Partners acted as the exclusive financial advisor to OneFit and its Shareholders on this transaction.
The sports and fitness industry is undergoing rapid digitalisation in order to enhance the customer experience and to cater to new customer demands. OneFit and Urban Sports Club are leading these developments by offering a sports and fitness platform with access to more than 10,000 work-out locations, over 50 different sports across six European countries. This is achieved through one flexible subscription and a fully integrated and digital environment.
Urban Sports Club is backed by premier European VCs such as Holtzbrinck Ventures, Partech Ventures and Rocket Internet. As part of the transaction, OneFit’s founders and their early backers – INKEF Capital and Peak Capital – will contribute to the enhancement of Urban Sports Club’s investor base.
Moritz Kreppel, co-founder and CEO of Urban Sports Club, said: “We welcome OneFit to the Urban Sports Club family. They have proven to be a front-runner in our industry, and this transaction will lead to an even better product and a larger partner network for our members. OneFit is the perfect partner to support our efforts of bringing our flexible sports flat-rate membership to new markets. I am very happy that our joint team will continue to grow and become even more international.”
OneFit CEO, Serge Brabander, added: “We started with one euro and a good idea. It is very special to see that together with Urban Sports Club we have become a serious player in the fitness landscape. Our companies have comparable DNA: we are flexible, European organizations led by their founders, with the ambition to conquer the world. Together we will create an ever-increasing movement of people who enjoy a healthy and active lifestyle.”
Frank Verbeek, Managing Partner of Drake Star Partners Amsterdam, added: “From a strategic point of view, it makes a lot of sense that parties combine their strength and intelligence, covering both the B2C and the B2B segments in this rapidly growing market. Merging technology, marketing, business models and teams that truly understand the European market will create a market-leading company servicing all stakeholders involved.”
Drake Star Partners team: Frank Verbeek, Sherief Rahim, Maarten Vrijhof
Legal advisors: Ingen Housz (Dutch legal counsel), P+P Pöllath + Partners (German legal counsel)
Enquiries
For further enquiries, please contact Frank Verbeek or Sherief Rahim:
Frank.Verbeek@drakestar.com ; Sherief.Rahim@drakestar.com
About OneFit
Amsterdam-based OneFit is the leading sports aggregator in the Netherlands, where it pioneered the fitness aggregation concept in 2012. In 2016 and 2018, the company expanded into Germany and Spain, where it has quickly grown its network and user base. Through its dedicated mobile app, OneFit provides its consumer and business members with flexibility, convenience, and value for money. The company currently has 75 employees.
For more information, please visit www.onefit.com
About Urban Sports Club
Urban Sports Club offers a flexible flat-rate sports membership. The mission is to help people lead a healthy and active lifestyle. Club members can choose from 50+ activities – ranging from a classic gym workout, swimming, yoga, or bouldering, to team sports and lots more – and more than 7,000 partner venues in Germany, France, Italy, Spain and Portugal. Variety, flexible conditions, as well as team sports and wellness are offered both for private customers and companies. Urban Sports GmbH was founded in 2012 by Moritz Kreppel and Benjamin Roth in Berlin, Germany. After two years of bootstrapping, the company secured an early-stage financing in 2015 and went on to acquire four of its German competitors. In December 2016, the former competitor Somuchmore joined the German market leader; FITrate joined in January 2018 and in December INTERFIT.
For more information, please visit www.urbansportsclub.com
Drake Star Partners is a global investment banking firm serving the technology, media and communications sectors (TMC) with offices in New York, London, Paris, Munich, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Berlin, Geneva, Singapore* and Dubai*. The firm focuses on M&A and corporate finance for its clients worldwide. Drake Star Partners completed over 400 transactions since 2004, 70% of which are cross-border.
Drake Star Partners is the marketing name for the global investment bank Drake Star Partners Limited and its subsidiaries and affiliates. In the USA, all securities are transacted through Drake Star Securities LLC. In the USA, Drake Star Securities LLC is regulated by FINRA and is a member of SIPC. Drake Star UK Limited (FRN 942020) is an appointed representative of Kession Capital Ltd (FRN582160) which is authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority. © 2016 Drake Star Partners Limited.