Target Description

The 468 SPAC I SE has identified potential target businesses which are based in the specific technology or technology-enabled sectors of marketplaces, direct-to-consumer (D2C), and software & artificial intelligence. Suitable target businesses in the Targeted Technology Sectors also include operating platforms with broader operations owning multiple assets. The Targeted Technology Sectors are defined as follows:

• Digital environments, focusing on e-commerce and mobile commerce, where products or services are aggregated on one platform to enhance customer experience;
• Over the past few years, digital marketplaces have seen a sustainable unbundling trend where service offerings of large generalist marketplaces have been overtaken by more specialized niche marketplaces; following this trend, we have identified several sub-segments with proven value creation by meeting global unbundling trends:
  • Deep marketplaces, i.e. marketplaces that specialize in value adding products and services and/or that tailor the customer experience to their specific target groups, and not only offer the mere matching of demand and supply but the additional value add of facilitating the fulfillment of a transaction in the form of intellectual property or operations, particularly in areas such as groceries and grocery and food deliveries, real estate or automobile sales;
  • Marketplaces participating in the sharing enabled economy, i.e. where users can share specific products or services for a limited amount of time to maximize the utilization of such products and services over their entire lifetime, which may in particular apply to the areas of mobility, travel, accommodation or consumer electronics; and
  • Business-to-business (B2B) marketplaces, i.e. establishment of commercial marketplaces by capitalizing on user behavior which has been learned from the frequent use of business-to-consumer (B2C) marketplaces and which may bring together fragmented supply and demand, such as in logistics, travel, or procurement technology.

• Digital retail business models where the manufacturer establishes category leading brands via a digital marketing strategy, i.e. proprietary online channels such as own website and omnichannel additions; the branded products will then be sold directly to the consumer cutting out wholesalers, distributors and retailers from the distribution chain;
• This business model leads to superior access to consumer data which allows for customized brand strategy and the ownership of a specific target group;
• Strong evolution of this sector thanks to digitally driven brand strategies; we see particularly high growth potential in target businesses within the following sub-segments:
  • Digital-native omnichannel business models, i.e. manufacturers focusing on the entire customer experience relating to their products by optimizing the entire customer journey from browsing, expiring and ordering, including a high degree of convenience thanks to state-of-the-art logistic capabilities as well as a high degree of operational excellence to ensure high product quality and entirely efficient production, focusing on areas such as fashion, travel, entertainment or cosmetics; and
  • Software-as-a-service (SaaS)-enabled brands, i.e. business models that build a digital ecosystem emerging from a D2C anchor product, in combination with digital-native subscription brands, i.e. businesses that focus on selling their products and services as a complementary offering to the D2C anchor product which leads to a strong lock-in effect and high earnings quality from a sticky customer base thanks to long-term subscription, particularly in areas such as sports and pet care.

• Application software which uses the machine (computer, mobile or other device) system to perform special functions or provide entertainment functions beyond the basic operation of the machine itself, and system software which manages machine hardware behavior, whereby such software may be empowered by artificial intelligence;
• In this sub-sector, we see particular potential in target businesses that either develop such software or provide consultancy or advisory services within:
  • Commercial open source, i.e. software projects where the source code is released under a license and can be used, studied and improved by users, but provides a direct source of revenue for the business via e.g. support contracts, services as well as enterprise for pay feature add-ons; critical mass is built up via bottom-up adoption and monetization is realized via top-down service offerings, in particular regarding operating systems or cloud software; and
  • Software-as-a-service (SaaS), i.e. software licensing and delivery model in which the software is licensed on a subscription basis and centrally hosted; this leads to customer stickiness and strong cohorts and has been further accelerated thanks to the evolution of professional cloud infrastructure services and data and artificial intelligence, i.e. software that includes self-learning or enhancement mechanisms or otherwise imitates or emulates intelligent human behavior to optimize automation and efficiency; businesses provide highly specialized (consulting) services that utilize existing software in the domains (enterprise) software, artificial intelligence or machine learning, which may in particular apply to areas such as human resources & accounting, business applications and supply chain management.