YPOG advised Great Hill Partners on €180 million investment in Echobot and Leadfeeder

Berlin – A YPOG team led by Martin Schaper und Tim Schlösser advised the Boston-based private equity firm Great Hill Partners on its investment in the German sales intelligence provider Echobot and the Finnish online platform Leadfeeder. Both companies officially announced their merger, which is backed by the €180 million investment from Great Hill Partners. With its capital, Great Hill supports the newly established group in its product innovation, sales expansion and international growth. A further €50 million have been allocated for further strategic acquisitions.  

The merged group is headed by Echobot founder Bastian Karweg as CEO and Leadfeeder founder Pekka Koskinen as CPO. Headquartered in Germany, the company operates with a globally integrated team of 250 professionals across six offices in Europe and the U.S. and manages 8.500 customers. 

The YPOG team around Martin Schaper and Tim Schlösser worked together with a team from Choate Hall & Stewart LLP, led by Daniel P. Riley. Marius Fritzsche and Luca Rawe from Pusch Wahlig Workplace Law advised on employment law matters, and Pascal Friton and Florian Wolf from Blomstein were involved for sanctions-related questions. Regarding the Finnish leg of the transaction, a team led by Antti Kahri from the Finnish law firm Merilampi provided legal advice. 

Advisors Great Hill Partners:

Dr. Martin Schaper (Co-Lead, Corporate/Transactions), Partner
Dr. Tim Schlösser (Co-Lead, Corporate/Transactions), Partner
Dr. Stephan Bank (Corporate/Transactions), Partner
Dr. Malte Bergmann (Tax), Partner
Ann-Kristin Lochmann (Tax), Associated Partner
Dr. Benedikt Flöter (IP/IT), Associated Partner
Dr. Karen Frehmel-Kück (Corporate/Transactions), Senior Associate
Dr. Martyna Sabat (Transactions), Senior Associate
Barbara Hasse (Corporate/Transactions), Associate
Alexander Sekunde (Corporate/Antitrust), Associate
Melisa Keme (Corporate/Transactions), Associate
Benjamin Müller (Corporate/Transactions), Associate

About Great Hill Partners 

Great Hill Partners is a Boston-based private equity firm targeting investments of $100 million to $500 million in high-growth companies across the software, digital commerce, financial technology, healthcare, and digital infrastructure sectors. Over the past two decades, Great Hill has raised over $12 billion of commitments and invested in more than 90 companies, establishing an extensive track record of building long-term partnerships with entrepreneurs and providing flexible resources to help middle-market companies scale. Great Hill has recently been recognized for its industry leadership, being ranked #5 in the 2021 HEC – DowJones Private Equity Performance Ranking, which evaluated fund performance of 517 leading private equity firms between 2008 – 2017. 

About Echobot Media Technologies GmbH 

Founded in 2011, Echobot specializes in providing premium company, contact and market-relevant data to fuel sales and marketing teams. Echobot’s innovative data platform leverages modern AI and machine learning that is made and hosted in Germany, helps businesses to refine their target audience, generate more B2B prospects, close new customers and boost revenues. Over 1.500 companies rely on Echobot to discover up-to-date firmographics, financials, sales triggers, similar companies and current news

About Leadfeeder 

Leadfeeder is a global B2B sales intelligence platform that identifies real-time buyer intent on customers’ websites. Leadfeeder identifies the companies and people visiting the website, automatically scores their intent based on behavior and assigns them to the right channel at the right time. With over 60,000 users globally, Leadfeeder’s unique 2-way integrations with CRMs and marketing platforms bring sales and marketing teams together, providing them with a unified 360-view of the customer journey. 

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