Fitbit has acquired the assets of the European luxury smartwatch brand, Vector Watch, in a transaction which represents yet another high-profile deal involving Romanian-based technology and a USA Silicon Valley-based acquirer in which serial entrepreneur and investor, Radu Georgescu, and venture investment firm Gecad Ventures have been instrumental. The value of the deal was not disclosed.

Vector Watch makes a line of high-end smartwatches that resemble expensive and modern traditional watches and boast an impressive battery life.

“With the addition of the Vector Watch team, we are establishing a cutting-edge development center in Bucharest, Romania, further building our global engineering capabilities and expanding our presence in EMEA.”, Fitbit said in a statement.

“We believe this is an important milestone…incorporating our unique technology and knowhow with Fitbit’s experience and global community”, Vector said in a statement posted on its web site.

Over the past year, Vector was advised on the disposal by a market-leading team of consultants, including Radu si Asociații SPRL | EY Law (through Dragoș Radu, Radu Ionescu and Nicoleta Gheorghe), the technology investment bank Pagemill Partners (a Duff & Phelps Business) based in Silicon Valley, the AmLaw 100 law firm, Faegre Baker Daniels LLP, Van Campen Liem, a leading law firm in the Netherlands.

“This type of deal is perfectly aligned with EY’s constant commitment to entrepreneurial companies. And we are proud of EY Law Romania’s involvement into such a cross-border, high profile transaction”, says Dragoș Radu, head of EY’s Law practice in Romania.

“When a category leader such as Fitbit reaches across the globe to acquire a company like Vector, you know the team and its investors have created something special. Pagemill was honored to lead this transaction and is excited to watch Fitbit leverage Vector’s market-leading cloud and mobile application platform across its massive user base” said Matt Sachse, a lead investment banker on the transaction at Pagemill Partners.

“It is great to see growing Silicon Valley awareness of, and interest in acquiring, the cutting edge technologies and exceptional technical expertise that Romania has to offer”, said Ted Cominos, a cross-border M&A partner with Faegre Bakers Daniels LLP that advised on the transaction.

“It was wonderful to help complete another successful, cross-border, M&A transaction with an Eastern European company,” said Charles Welch, now Co-CEO of Menalto Advisors, LLC, an investment bank based in Silicon Valley.

“One more example where the Dutch-Romanian connection in the VC and PE structures proves to work well until exit, and we were a witness”, says Marc Van Campen, name partner of the international Dutch law firm of Van Campen Liem.

Sources:
www.bizlawyer.ro
www.juridice.ro