Press release

Hypoport SE: closer collaboration between the Hypoport Group and the start-up ecosystem in Germany, Austria and Switzerland
 

- New Hypoport team established for strategic partnerships

- Chris Heyer appointed as the Hypoport Group's Chief Investment & Partnership Officer

- First success achieved thanks to partnership with insurtech start-up Helvengo

Berlin, 3 March 2021: Hypoport SE is stepping up its collaboration with the start-up ecosystem in Germany, Austria and Switzerland by forming strategic partnerships. The focus will be on fintech, insurtech and proptech start-ups that have significant synergies with the existing Hypoport network. The team working on these activities is headed up by Chief Investment & Partnership Officer Chris Heyer and the work falls under the Management Board remit of CEO Ronald Slabke.

Thanks to its network of technology companies serving the credit, property and insurance sectors, the Hypoport Group has a wide range of tie-ins with numerous developments in the start-up ecosystem. This provides scope for partnerships, in which the aim is to combine the start-ups' speed of innovation with the Hypoport network's business activities in order to derive shared benefits.

Chris Heyer, who helped to establish three start-ups and worked as an innovation advisor before joining Hypoport in 2018, is delighted with his new role within the Hypoport Group: "We set great store in establishing long-term, strategic partnerships that bring tangible benefits for both parties. Hypoport itself began as a start-up in the field of B2B online marketplaces in the early 2000s. Over the last 20 years, it has progressively added to its network and created a unique corporate culture characterised by entrepreneurial freedom. I want to combine the experience that I have gained at Hypoport over the past three years with my previous start-up activities to bring these two worlds together profitably. To this end, we are commercialising and scaling up strategic partnerships in which we are contributing our Hypoport market expertise, our customer network and our product development experience. If we believe a start-up has particular strategic relevance to Hypoport, we may also consider an equity investment in it."

The first success has already been achieved with a recently formed strategic partnership with Swiss insurtech start-up Helvengo AG, which includes an equity investment and provides a number of opportunities for collaboration within the Hypoport Group. Helvengo specialises in tailored, needs-based insurance policies for small and medium-sized enterprises. The founders intend to expand into Germany and Austria this year. Helvengo is being built up by Vedran Pranjic, Benedikt Andreas and Felix Huemer. All three are former employees of wefox, an insurtech company in Berlin.

Further information on the strategic partnership of Hypoport in the start-up ecosystem can be found on the new website:

About Hypoport SE

Hypoport SE is headquartered in Lübeck (Germany) and is the parent company of the Hypoport Group. The Group is a network of technology companies for the credit, real-estate and insurance industries with a workforce of more than 2,000 employees. It is grouped into four segments: Credit Platform, Private Clients, Real Estate Platform and Insurance Platform.

The Credit Platform segment operates Europace, which is an online B2B financial marketplace and the largest German platform offering mortgages, building finance products and personal loans. A fully integrated system links more than 750 partners - banks, insurers and financial product distributors. Several thousand loan brokerage advisors execute approx. 35,000 transactions per month on Europace, generating a volume of more than €7 billion. Besides Europace, the FINMAS and GENOPACE sub-marketplaces and the B2B distribution companies Qualitypool and Starpool support the growth of the credit platform. REM CAPITAL AG provides specialist advice on the arrangement of complex public-sector development loans for companies and financing for SMEs in Germany. At fundingport GmbH a corporate finance marketplace is being established.

The Private Clients segment, made up of the web-based, non-captive financial product distributor Dr. Klein Privatkunden and the consumer comparison portal Vergleich.de, brings together all business models aimed at directly advising consumers on mortgages, insurance or pension products.

All real estate-related activities of the Hypoport Group, with the exception of mortgage finance, are grouped together in the Real Estate Platform segment (previously Institutional Clients) with the aim of digitalising the sale, valuation, financing and management of properties.

The Insurance Platform segment operates SMART INSUR, a web-based B2B platform for advice, comparison of tariffs and the administration of insurance policies. The segment also incorporates the insurance unit of Qualitypool, a B2B distribution company.

The shares of Hypoport SE are listed in the Prime Standard segment of the Frankfurt Stock Exchange (Deutsche Börse) and have been included in the SDAX since 2015.

Contact

Jan H. Pahl
Investor Relations Manager

Phone: +49 (0)30 / 42086 - 1942
Mobile: +49 (0)176 / 965 125 19
Email:

Hypoport SE
Heidestr. 8
10557 Berlin

Key data on Hypoport's shares

ISIN DE 0005493365
WKN 549336
Stock exchanges symbol HYQ