25 Years of atares. From Proventis to atares: milestones, specialization, resilience

In the M&A and tech world, 25 years can't be taken for granted. Staying relevant for a quarter of a century takes more than transaction experience. It takes adaptability, entrepreneurial sharpness, and the willingness to evolve alongside the market. 

That, precisely, is the story of atares. 

The roots reach back to 2001, when today's Managing Partners Jan Pörschmann and Rainer Wieser founded Proventis as a sector-agnostic M&A advisory. The ambition was clear from the outset: understand business models, not just industries. Over the years, this grew into one of the largest independent M&A boutiques in the DACH region, with mandates across a wide range of sectors and a growing affinity for technology-driven transactions. 

Advising on numerous tech deals in particular, including in and around the ProSiebenSat.1 Media group, became an early foundation of what now defines the atares DNA. 

From dot-com to dot-gone 

The past 25 years haven't been linear. They've been shaped by upheavals, ruptures, and constant new acceleration. 

Or, as Jan Pörschmann puts it: "We've seen it all, from dot-com to dot-gone." 

The financial and economic crisis, waves of digitalization, globalizing markets, multiple crises, and today the breakneck pace of AI development: all of it was not just a challenge, but a teacher. Each of these phases made one thing clear: business models have to adapt or reinvent themselves. That holds for companies. And it holds for M&A advisory itself. 

Tech demands a different M&A logic 

As the number of complex tech transactions grew, it became clear that the risk profile of acquisitions in the technology sector differs fundamentally from that of traditional industries. Technology cycles are getting shorter, business models moredynamic, valuation logic more demanding. 

Classic M&A approaches increasingly run up against their limits here. Anyone who wants to properly understand and value SaaS models, AI applications, platform dynamics, or other digital value drivers today needs more than financial routine. It takes a solid grasp of technological substance, market mechanics, and operational feasibility. 

That is precisely where a decisive step in atares' development originated. 

From classic investment banking to a digital M&A workshop 

The consequence of this shift was a clear realignment: in tech transactions, it's no longer enough to have classic investment-banking expertise on the deal team. 

Today, it takes a combination of three things: M&A expertise, entrepreneurial experience, and deep technological fluency. 

Because blockchain, AI, SaaS, and data-driven platform models aren't short-lived trends. They're fundamental shifts in business models that call for different valuation approaches, different due-diligence perspectives, and above all, advisors who can engage as genuine peers. 

That's how atares took its current form: as a digital M&A workshop for technology-driven midcap companies. 

"We speak tech because we live tech" 

What that means in concrete terms shows up not only in the positioning, but in the firm's own way of working. The digital value levers atares identifies for clients, it applies just as rigorously in-house. Over the years, the firm has built its own tool stack that accelerates transaction processes, sharpens analysis, and frees up capacity for what really matters in a deal: value-creating work with the client. 

The digital infrastructure is therefore not a marketing narrative, but lived reality. 

How seriously atares lives up to this ambition is also reflected in the team's own experience. Pascal Kopp, a trained business-information-systems specialist and today Head of Business Development at atares, recalls his first conversations with Jan Pörschmann and Rainer Wieser: the tool stack they showed him was immediately compelling on a professional level, but it also raised a question, was this a good narrative, or genuine execution? 

The answer came quickly in practice. The sale of FLEXICODE to EOS, which began right as he joined atares, showed in very concrete terms how consistently tools and AI are integrated into day-to-day deal work. The use of digital tools created tangible time savings, more room for high-value client work, and enabled a structured, friction-free process in a remarkably short time. 

Resilience through evolution 

Looking back on 25 years, the mind quickly turns to visible milestones: mandates, closings, partnerships, growth. But the real achievement runs deeper. 

Resilience shows itself not in clinging to the old, but in the ability to evolve without losing your core. That is exactly what describes the path from Proventis to atares. 

Not volume, but relevance. Not standardization, but entrepreneurial fit. Not retrospection for its own sake, but experience as the foundation for the next stage of development. 

The bottom line 

25 years of atares stand for more than continuity. They stand for the ability to keep sharpening the firm's edge in moving markets. 

From sector-agnostic M&A advisory to a digital M&A workshop for tech companies: this development wasn't a mere rebrand, but a consistent evolution. And it isn't an endpoint, it's the foundation for whatever comes next.