Today Coinvest Capital, acting through a subfund "Antrasis koinvesticinis fondas", together with other investors and founders of the membership platform Contribee, sold 100% of its shares to Masiva Group, which has taken over full control of the platform and will continue to operate it with its new team. The combined investment of Coinvest Capital, business angels, and another venture capital fund amounted to EUR 250,118 and the investors have recovered all the funds invested in the company.
Coinvest Capital co-invested in the company with business angels and another venture capital fund in two rounds: the first in February 2021 and the second in September of the same year. Coinvest Capital's investment totalled almost €120,000 and the fund's direct ownership stake in the platform was 10.5%.
"This transaction is an example of how similar problems should be solved in the venture capital market, in line with the best international practice and in compliance with the signed terms of the transaction and shareholders' agreement," noted Viktorija Trimbel, Managing Director at Coinvest Capital.
The share sale deal allowed investors to exit the company after the crisis, that started at the end of 2023, when facts about misappropriated client funds were discovered.
She believes that the fund and the investors who worked closely together managed to keep a cool head and find a legitimate, value-based solution to the major problem, achieving several important milestones along the way.
"The first and most important achievement is that in February this year, a joint effort succeeded in recovering the misappropriated donations made by many people to Ukrainian soldiers who risk their lives every day.
In addition, together with the help of law enforcement officials, legal experts and auditors, we have managed to resolve this highly complex issue in a professional and confidential manner, and to protect the very important "Radarom!" fundraising caimpaign, aimed to support Ukrainian heroes, from the risk of an unjust negative publicity. At the same time, due measures were taken to ensure the safety of all the platform's clients and donors' funds.
And today, the investors have finally been able to recover all their invested capital, including the Lithuanian and EU taxpayers' funds that make up our commited capital and a large part of the capital of the other fund managed by the trustee, by applying the liquidation preference, as pre-agreed in the Shareholders' Agreement," said Ms. Trimbel.
She added sincere wishes for success to the buyer of the shares, Masiva Group UAB, as it seeks to re-establish the platform's reputation and realize its potential.
Coinvest Capital is a venture capital fund, led by Viktorija Trimbel since the end of February 2023. In 2021, the Fund invested in Contribee together with other investors and became one of the minority shareholders holding 10.5% of the shares in accordance with the concept of "silent investor" as defined in the Fund's legislation, whereby the Fund does not participate directly in the management of the company, but delegates the voting rights at the General Meetings of Shareholders to a contractually mandated representative of the investors, while reserving all the proprietary rights.
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