News-Kategorie: Private Equity

Lausanne/Boston — Next­hink, the leading provi­der of digi­tal employee expe­ri­ence manage­ment soft­ware, today announ­ced a $180 million Series D funding round. This brings the company’s valua­tion to $1.1 billion.

The finan­cing round is led by the Growth Oppor­tu­ni­ties Fund of inter­na­tio­nal invest­ment firm Perm­ira, with parti­ci­pa­tion from exis­ting inves­tors such as High­land Europe and Index Ventures. Bruce Chizen, Senior Advi­sor at Perm­ira and former CEO of Adobe, joins Nexthink’s Board of Direc­tors. The company intends to use the proceeds from the finan­cing round to further acce­le­rate inno­va­tion, growth and global expan­sion, parti­cu­larly in the US.

Next­hink provi­des IT teams with a compre­hen­sive plat­form for mana­ging the digi­tal expe­ri­ence of enter­prise employees. This enables digi­tal employee bene­fits to be moder­ni­zed, relia­bly deli­vered, and proac­tively impro­ved. Accor­ding to a recent survey, 96 percent of tech­no­logy execu­ti­ves agree that mana­ging the enter­prise digi­tal expe­ri­ence with tech­no­logy is an essen­tial part of IT teams’ jobs. Still, more than a third (34%) rely on occa­sio­nal surveys to coll­ect rela­ted data, and nearly half (46%) don’t measure their employees’ digi­tal expe­ri­ence at all. Nexthink’s award-winning plat­form provi­des enter­prise IT with a cloud-based solu­tion that provi­des compre­hen­sive visi­bi­lity into employees’ day-to-day expe­ri­en­ces with tech­no­logy at the device, appli­ca­tion and network levels. The detailed analy­sis capa­bi­li­ties and visua­liza­ti­ons greatly faci­li­tate trou­ble­shoo­ting and enable IT teams to conti­nuously improve employee satis­fac­tion with IT and resolve issues within minutes.

Next­hink curr­ently employs nearly 700 people and plans to grow to 900 by the end of 2021 — across all major loca­ti­ons in Europe, India and the US. In the past fiscal year, the company contin­ued to grow rapidly, surpas­sing the $100 million mark in recur­ring reve­nue (ARR). The number of custo­mers has increased by more than 180 to now more than 1,000 compa­nies, inclu­ding global firms that use the soft­ware on more than eleven million workstations.

In 2020, Next­hink laun­ched nume­rous new products, inclu­ding the Remote Worker Expe­ri­ence solu­tion, Expe­ri­ence Opti­miza­tion for proac­tive support teams, and addi­tio­nal features for virtua­liza­tion and indi­vi­dua­li­zed IT support. In the Forres­ter New Wave™: End-User Expe­ri­ence Manage­ment, Q4 2020, Next­hink was reco­gni­zed as a market leader.

“The trend towards decen­tra­li­zed working has signi­fi­cantly acce­le­ra­ted the need for soft­ware solu­ti­ons for the digi­tal expe­ri­ence with IT in compa­nies. This is because a signi­fi­cant portion of employee inter­ac­tions are now comple­tely digi­tal,” says Pedro Bados, CEO and co-foun­der of Next­hink. “We are facing a unique oppor­tu­nity to rede­fine now how compa­nies will provide digi­tal work­places to their employees in the future. We are deligh­ted to have found a new part­ner in growth inves­tor Perm­ira to accom­pany us on this exci­ting jour­ney. Bruce is an excel­lent addi­tion to our team. As CEO of Adobe, he has inspi­red milli­ons of users with visio­nary soft­ware and perma­nently chan­ged the way people work toge­ther. Toge­ther with him, we now aim to do the same with Next­hink at thou­sands of compa­nies worldwide.”

“Next­hink has seen rapid growth in recent years,” says Bruce Chizen. “With the shift towards decen­tra­li­zed and digi­tal working, the digi­tal expe­ri­ence with IT in compa­nies takes on a promi­nent importance for employee satis­fac­tion. With this round of funding, Next­hink is well equip­ped to reshape the role of IT for the world’s largest compa­nies and provide a plat­form for opti­mally aligned digi­tal workplaces.”

“Disrup­tive soft­ware provi­ders that help increase produc­ti­vity and employee satis­fac­tion in compa­nies are a key invest­ment focus for Perm­ira in the tech­no­logy sector. With its strong growth and tech­no­logy focus, Next­hink ther­e­fore fits perfectly into the stra­tegy of the Perm­ira Growth Oppor­tu­ni­ties Fund,” adds Pierre Pozzo, Prin­ci­pal at Permira.

The Perm­ira Funds’ invest­ment is from the Growth Oppor­tu­ni­ties Fund I, which focu­ses on mino­rity invest­ments in high-growth compa­nies. The Perm­ira funds are among the largest soft­ware inves­tors in the world. Well-known invest­ments include Team­Viewer, a global plat­form for the digi­tal networ­king of people and machi­nes, Mirakl, a SaaS market­place plat­form, Zwift, a global online fitness plat­form for cyclists and runners, and Klarna, the leading inno­va­tive payment service provider.

The closing of this tran­sac­tion is sche­du­led for Q1. www.nexthink.com.

About Perm­ira

Perm­ira is a global private equity firm, was foun­ded in 1985 and advi­ses funds with a total volume of around USD 50 billion. The Permira
advi­sed funds invest in compa­nies for the long term with the aim of incre­asing the value of these compa­nies through sustainable growth. Perm­ira advi­sed funds have comple­ted more than 250 tran­sac­tions in four key sectors: Tech­no­logy, Consu­mer Goods, Services and Health­care. Perm­ira employs more than 250 people at 15 loca­ti­ons in Europe,
North America and Asia.

About High­land Europe
High­land Europe invests in extre­mely high-growth soft­ware and Inter­net compa­nies. Opera­ting as High­land Capi­tal Part­ners in Europe since 2003 and offi­ci­ally laun­ched in 2012, High­land Europe has raised over €1.8 billion and inves­ted in compa­nies such as Adjust, AMCS, Camunda, ContentS­quare, Feature­space, GetY­our­Guide, Huel, Jellys­mack, Malware­bytes, Matches­Fa­shion, NewVoice­Me­dia, Next­hink, Spot, Super­me­trics, WeTrans­fer, Wolt and Zwift. Highland’s total invest­ments in the U.S., Europe and China include 46 IPOs and compa­nies valued at more than $19 billion.

About Index Ventures
Index Ventures is an inter­na­tio­nal venture capi­tal firm based in London and San Fran­cisco that helps the most ambi­tious entre­pre­neurs turn bold ideas into global busi­ness. Index-backed compa­nies that are resha­ping the world around us include Data­dog, Drop­box, Elas­tic and Slack.

Darmstadt/Madrid/Lyon — Imaweb, a leading inde­pen­dent deve­lo­per and provi­der of soft­ware solu­ti­ons for auto­mo­tive dealer­ships and repair shops in Europe, today announ­ced the acqui­si­tion of Procar Infor­ma­tik AG (“Procar”), a leading provi­der of soft­ware solu­ti­ons for car dealer­ships in the DACH region. The parties have agreed not to disc­lose the finan­cial details of the transaction.

Darm­stadt-based Procar Infor­ma­tik AG was foun­ded in 1998 and, with around 1,000 custo­mers, is one of the leading provi­ders of soft­ware solu­ti­ons for car dealer­ships in Germany. The company offers solu­ti­ons for dealers and work­shops of the most famous auto­mo­tive brands such as Toyota, BMW, Skoda, Seat, Volks­wa­gen, Audi, Ford and Renault.

Imaweb provi­des auto­mo­tive manu­fac­tu­r­ers (OEMs) and car dealer­ships with a compre­hen­sive range of soft­ware solu­ti­ons to help them digi­tize their entire proces­ses. The company is the market leader in custo­mer rela­ti­onship manage­ment (CRM), dealer­ship manage­ment and after­sa­les soft­ware. Since May 2019, Madrid-based Imaweb has been accom­pa­nied by funds advi­sed by PSG. PSG is an inves­tor specia­li­zing in soft­ware compa­nies that provi­des growth capi­tal to leading mid-market companies.

Through the acqui­si­tion of Procar, Imaweb estab­lishes a strong presence in the DACH region, the largest auto­mo­tive market in Europe. At the same time, the acqui­si­tion crea­tes a leading plat­form that will enable further conso­li­da­tion of the highly frag­men­ted soft­ware market for car dealer­ships. The two foun­ders of Procar, Volker Holt­haus and Karl-Heinz Schlapp, will conti­nue to manage the opera­tio­nal business.

“We are deligh­ted to have the Procar team support Imaweb. This tran­sac­tion repres­ents a leap forward in the deve­lo­p­ment of our company and is ther­e­fore an important mile­stone,” empha­si­zed Patrick Prajs, CEO, and Julian Ciccale, co-foun­der and deputy CEO, of Imaweb. “By combi­ning Procar’s posi­tion as market leader in the DACH region with our exis­ting offe­ring in other Euro­pean count­ries, we are initia­ting Imaweb’s next phase of growth towards beco­ming a leading pan-Euro­pean provider.”

Volker Holt­haus and Karl-Heinz Schlapp added: “We are very plea­sed to become part of Imaweb’s success story. Imaweb has a strong posi­tion in Europe and follows a part­ner­ship approach. This makes it exactly the right part­ner to take Procar to the next level of its development.”

PSG has been support­ing the foun­ders of Imaweb in the pan-Euro­pean expan­sion of the leading Spanish provi­der of CRM solu­ti­ons in the auto­mo­tive indus­try since May 2019. Imaweb’s strong growth in recent years has been both orga­nic and driven by M&A acti­vity. Imaweb had alre­ady acqui­red IDF/Datafirst, a leading soft­ware deve­lo­per for car dealer­ships in France, in Septem­ber 2019 and formed it into a strong plat­form with the subse­quent acqui­si­ti­ons of TMS and Adstra­tegy. In addi­tion, Imaweb was able to expand its posi­tion on the Iberian Penin­sula through the acqui­si­tion of Serin­fer in Spain and Portu­gal, and also estab­lished itself in the Bene­lux count­ries with the acqui­si­tion of IT Motive and Evolutive.

About Imaweb

Imaweb is a leading soft­ware provi­der for auto­mo­tive sales in Europe. The company resul­ted from the merger in 2019 of Imaweb, a Spanish company specia­li­zing in the deve­lo­p­ment of global CRM solu­ti­ons for sales, marke­ting and custo­mer service, with DATA­FIRST-I’Car Systems Group, the leading French provi­der of car dealer­ship soft­ware. www.imaweb.com

About Procar

Procar Infor­ma­tik AG is one of the leading German provi­ders of soft­ware solu­ti­ons for car dealer­ships. Foun­ded in 1998 by Volker Holt­haus and Karl-Heinz Schlapp, Procar today offers solu­ti­ons for around 1,000 car dealers and OEMs in the DACH region. The company’s custo­mers include dealer­ships of seve­ral global auto­mo­tive brands, inclu­ding Toyota, BMW, Skoda, Seat, VW, Audi, Ford, Renault and Nissan. www.procar.de

About PSG

PSG is a specia­list soft­ware company inves­tor, a subsi­diary of PSG Group of South Africa, which provi­des growth capi­tal to leading, fast-growing mid-market compa­nies. PSG works closely with foun­ders and manage­ment teams and supports them in imple­men­ting their stra­tegy. PSG provi­des opera­tio­nal and finan­cial resour­ces for this purpose to acce­le­rate growth. Since its incep­tion in 2014, PSG has assis­ted more than 65 soft­ware compa­nies and helped execute more than 275 add-on acqui­si­ti­ons. PSG has offices in London, Boston and Kansas City.

Pfäf­fi­kon (Switz­er­land) — Ufenau has made a first invest­ment in Spain and acqui­red a majo­rity stake in the company “Diseño y Manten­imi­ento de Plan­tas Frigo­rí­fi­cas” (“R&M”). R&M, previously known as APR, is a leading provi­der of inte­gral indus­trial refri­ge­ra­tion solu­ti­ons based in Valencia.

With more than 70 employees at loca­ti­ons in Valen­cia and Madrid and sales of appro­xi­m­ately EUR 30 million, R&M has execu­ted some of the largest projects for the design, instal­la­tion and main­ten­ance of indus­trial cooling systems in Spain. The well-known custo­mers are mainly active in the growing food and logi­stics sector.

The company has become a refe­rence in both sectors thanks to its own very high tech­ni­cal quality stan­dards and strong focus on service quality. Even in times of pande­mic, these services are essen­tial and in high demand

The foun­ders and previous owners of R&M have taken a signi­fi­cant equity stake and conti­nue to manage the busi­ness. In addi­tion, toge­ther they will conti­nue to drive the growth of the new group through a combi­na­tion of orga­nic and inor­ga­nic growth initiatives.

Ricardo Mayor, foun­der of R&M, belie­ves that “Ufenau is the right part­ner for R&M’s deve­lo­p­ment, as it allows us not only to expand our presence in Spain, but also to incor­po­rate new busi­ness areas into the company. It brings toge­ther two teams with high tech­ni­cal and finan­cial skills with a clear objec­tive: to provide our custo­mers with high quality services with added value. Toge­ther, we are setting out to conso­li­date a leading indus­try group that will undoub­tedly bene­fit the entire natio­nal industry.”

Ralf Flore, mana­ging part­ner of Ufenau (photo), comm­ents: “R&M has grown rapidly in recent years and has been able to work successfully and on a recur­ring basis with blue chip custo­mers in an enorm­ously deman­ding tech­ni­cal sector. The foun­ders have succee­ded in buil­ding a great team of highly quali­fied and moti­va­ted profes­sio­nals. We, and speci­fi­cally our two Spanish colle­agues, Joaquín Alcalde and Igna­cio Goded, are plea­sed to support the entire R&M team in this new phase of growth and to contri­bute our exten­sive expe­ri­ence in value crea­tion stra­te­gies, which has enab­led us to successfully execute more than 180 growth invest­ments in the DACH region. It is our first acqui­si­tion in Spain, reflec­ting our strong commit­ment to expand our reach and acti­vity in Spain as well, which has alre­ady star­ted in 2019.”

About Ufenau Capi­tal Partners

Ufenau Capi­tal Part­ners is a Swiss inves­tor group based on Lake Zurich. The company focu­ses on majo­rity share­hol­dings in service compa­nies in Switz­er­land, Germany and Austria that are active in the areas of Busi­ness Services, Educa­tion & Life­style, Health­Care and Finan­cial Services. With an exten­sive circle of renow­ned and expe­ri­en­ced indus­try part­ners (owners, CEOs, CFOs), Ufenau Capi­tal Part­ners pursues an active value-added invest­ment approach at eye level with entrepreneurs.

Frank­furt am Main — Beyond Capi­tal Part­ners Fund II, advi­sed by Beyond Capi­tal Part­ners GmbH (“BCP”), has acqui­red a 75% majo­rity stake in Frank­furt-based Xortec GmbH (“Xortec”), closing in Janu­ary 2021.

Xortec is a leading value added distri­bu­tor of holi­stic video surveil­lance and data commu­ni­ca­ti­ons solu­ti­ons. The company’s focus is on the distri­bu­tion of profes­sio­nal video surveil­lance solu­ti­ons and a compre­hen­sive accom­pany­ing service offering.Beyond Capi­tal Part­ners alre­ady coun­ted two value-added IT distri­bu­tors in its port­fo­lio in the past and was ther­e­fore able to convince the sellers with a promi­sing and proven growth strategy.

Mana­ging Direc­tor Hubert Irka explains the decis­ion to sell shares to Beyond Capi­tal Part­ners as follows: “For us, a part­ner­ship on an equal footing was decisive and, based on the posi­tive expe­ri­ence during the nego­tia­ti­ons, we are confi­dent that we have found this part­ner in Beyond Capi­tal Partners.”

“As an estab­lished and profes­sio­nal B2B service provi­der in the video surveil­lance and data commu­ni­ca­tion solu­tion segment, Xortec is one of the fastest growing provi­ders in Germany and has stood for dyna­mism and quality for years. We are plea­sed to accom­pany the next growth stage toge­ther with the two foun­ders. In the frag­men­ted compe­ti­tive envi­ron­ment, we see a very good oppor­tu­nity to build Xortec into one of the leading provi­ders in the DACH region with a broa­der product range and a pan-Euro­pean sales market over the coming years, also through further acqui­si­ti­ons,” says Chris­toph D. Kauter, Foun­der and Mana­ging Part­ner of Beyond Capi­tal Partners.

About Beyond Capi­tal Partners

Beyond Capi­tal Part­ners is an invest­ment company and acqui­res majo­rity stakes in profi­ta­ble medium-sized compa­nies from the DACH region through the funds it advi­ses, with a focus on the asset-light sectors of services, IT, soft­ware, health­care, life­style and enter­tain­ment. www.beyondcapital-partners.com

About Xortec

Xortec GmbH, based in Frank­furt am Main, Germany, is a leading provi­der of network-based video surveil­lance and data commu­ni­ca­ti­ons solu­ti­ons. The company focu­ses on the sale of profes­sio­nal video surveil­lance solu­ti­ons and a compre­hen­sive range of accom­pany­ing services.
video.xortec.com

Munich — Afinum Achte Betei­li­gungs­ge­sell­schaft mbH & Co KG, advi­sed by Afinum Manage­ment GmbH, indi­rectly acqui­res a majo­rity stake in the Sander­Stroth­mann Group, a leading full-service provi­der (CDMO) in the fast-growing market for cosme­tics, beauty and health­care products. Afinum invests toge­ther with the two mana­ging direc­tors Sabrina Berg­haus and Stefan Vogels in the context of an entre­pre­neu­rial succes­sion situa­tion. Toge­ther with the manage­ment team, Afinum will support the group in conti­nuing the successful growth path of the past years.

The Sander­Stroth­mann Group (www.sanderstrothmann.de, “Sander­Stroth­mann”), consis­ting of the two group compa­nies Sander­Stroth­mann GmbH and Compes Cosme­tic GmbH & Co. KG (“Compes”), is a leading certi­fied full-service CDMO (Contract Deve­lo­p­ment and Manu­fac­tu­ring Orga­niza­tion) in the fast-growing market for cosme­tics, beauty and health­care products. Typi­cal Sander­Stroth­mann custo­mers have their own brand and/or distri­bu­tion chan­nel, but often lack the neces­sary exper­tise to deve­lop and manu­fac­ture beauty and health­care products (e.g. global e‑commerce platforms/social media networks/influencers, pharmacies/drug stores/stationary retail­ers, home shop­ping provi­ders and beauty centers).

In addi­tion to custo­mi­zed cosme­tic products, the broad product range also includes bioci­des, disin­fec­tants as well as nutri­tio­nal supple­ments with a specia­liza­tion in active ingre­di­ent cosme­tics and health-promo­ting “problem solvers”. The IP/formulation remains in the posses­sion of Sander­Stroth­mann. Thanks to the in-depth group-inter­nal know-how along the entire value chain (market analy­sis, product deve­lo­p­ment and formu­la­tion, design and pack­a­ging, regu­la­tory aspects and appr­oval proce­du­res, purcha­sing and logi­stics, produc­tion and filling, quality assu­rance, after-sales), Sander­Stroth­mann is distin­gu­is­hed by its full-service offe­ring, high flexi­bi­lity, very short deve­lo­p­ment and imple­men­ta­tion time, and — espe­ci­ally with a view to the fast-growing Asian market — its “Made in Germany” quality promise. The Group opera­tes an asset-light busi­ness model. Thus, most of the produc­tion is outsour­ced to trus­ted exter­nal part­ners, while the in-house Compes manu­fac­tu­ring exclu­si­vely produ­ces high-quality cosme­tic products for Pres­tige Beauty brands.

Sander­Stroth­mann GmbH was foun­ded in 2000 by Michael Sander and Rene Stroth­mann, who acqui­red a majo­rity stake in Compes in 2019 as part of an add-on acqui­si­tion. The two Group compa­nies toge­ther employ around 160 people at the joint site in Georgs­ma­ri­en­hütte, Lower Saxony, where the two certi­fied (inclu­ding DIN EN ISO 13485 for medi­cal products) high-tech labo­ra­to­ries with state-of-the-art equip­ment are also operated.

Afinum invests toge­ther with the two mana­ging direc­tors Sabrina Berg­haus and Stefan Vogels in the context of an entre­pre­neu­rial succes­sion situa­tion, wher­eby the foun­ders Michael Sander and Rene Stroth­mann will conti­nue to support the group as stra­te­gic advi­sors in the future. Toge­ther with the manage­ment team, Afinum will support the Group in conti­nuing the successful growth trajec­tory of the past years, inclu­ding by further streng­thening its posi­tio­ning in exis­ting and new geogra­phies and by progres­si­vely expan­ding its product and custo­mer portfolio.

The invest­ment in Sander­Stroth­mann repres­ents the eleventh plat­form tran­sac­tion of Afinum Achte Betei­li­gungs­ge­sell­schaft mbH & Co KG.

About Afinum

AFINUM Manage­ment GmbH is an inde­pen­dent manage­ment-owned invest­ment company with offices in Munich, Zurich and Hong Kong, specia­li­zing in invest­ments in successful medium-sized compa­nies in German-spea­king Europe.

Munich, Luxem­bourg — IDnow, a leading provi­der of Iden­tity Veri­fi­ca­tion-as-a-Service solu­ti­ons, recei­ves 15 million in growth funding from the Euro­pean Invest­ment Bank. The funds will be used for IDnow’s rese­arch, deve­lo­p­ment and inter­na­tio­nal expan­sion. The finan­cing of the Bank of the EU is made possi­ble by the Invest­ment Plan for Europe.

The Euro­pean Invest­ment Bank (EIB) is awar­ding EUR 15 million in growth finan­cing to the German iden­tity veri­fi­ca­tion plat­form IDnow. IDnow specia­li­zes in secure remote auto and video iden­ti­fi­ca­tion and elec­tro­nic signa­tures. Compa­nies can thus acquire custo­mers and carry out tran­sac­tions more quickly and easily without viola­ting “Know Your Custo­mer” and money laun­de­ring regu­la­ti­ons. The invest­ment will prima­rily go towards IDnow’s rese­arch and deve­lo­p­ment acti­vi­ties and inter­na­tio­nal expansion.

The finan­cing falls under the Euro­pean Growth Finance Faci­lity (EGFF), made possi­ble by the guaran­tee of the Euro­pean Fund for Stra­te­gic Invest­ments (EFSI). EGFF is desi­gned to fill a gap in quasi-equity finan­cing in Europe. This gap is caused by struc­tu­ral market fail­ures in provi­ding suita­ble venture capi­tal to compa­nies that have alre­ady recei­ved venture capi­tal and are now in a later stage. Euro­pean small, medium and mid-cap compa­nies often suffer from a syste­mic shortage of non-dilu­tive large-scale finan­cing for growth invest­ments in property, plant and equip­ment and intan­gi­ble assets. The bene­fit of the EFSI in this case is that it signi­fi­cantly impro­ves the bank’s risk-bearing capacity.

The EFSI is the main pillar of the Invest­ment Plan for Europe, in which the EIB and the Euro­pean Commis­sion work toge­ther as stra­te­gic part­ners. With its loans, the EIB is helping to make the Euro­pean economy more compe­ti­tive. In addi­tion, there is the Euro­pean Invest­ment Advi­sory Hub (EIAH), which helps public and private project promo­ters struc­ture invest­ment projects in a more profes­sio­nal manner.

Ambroise Fayolle, EIB Vice-Presi­dent over­see­ing EFSI as well as the Bank’s opera­ti­ons in Germany, said: “IDnow, which is recei­ving an EIB loan for the first time, has to invest signi­fi­cantly in its rese­arch, deve­lo­p­ment and commer­cia­liza­tion acti­vi­ties. This loan is an excel­lent exam­ple of how the EU’s bank can use the Invest­ment Plan for Europe to foster inno­va­tion, espe­ci­ally in sensi­tive areas such as the fight against money laun­de­ring and terro­rist finan­cing, as well as cyber­se­cu­rity, which are of great stra­te­gic importance to the EU and its economy.”

Euro­pean Commis­sio­ner for Econo­mic Affairs Paolo Genti­loni said: “As more and more of our inter­ac­tions take place online, it is more important than ever that we streng­then data secu­rity and fraud preven­tion. It is right that the Invest­ment Plan for Europe contri­bu­tes to these efforts. This support will enable the German plat­form IDnow to expand its services for digi­tal iden­tity veri­fi­ca­tion of custo­mers and busi­ness part­ners. We are inves­t­ing in a secure busi­ness envi­ron­ment online, one of the goals of our digi­tal finance strategy.”

IDnow CFO Joe Lich­ten­ber­ger said, “Covid-19 has noti­ce­ably boos­ted demand for digi­tal services, and thus for our ‘veri­fi­ca­tion as-a-service’ solu­tion, across various indus­tries and geogra­phies. EIB’s flexi­ble finan­cing helps us to invest faster in the deve­lo­p­ment of the plat­form and take advan­tage of busi­ness oppor­tu­ni­ties. The EIB is the ideal part­ner for us to estab­lish oursel­ves as a leading Euro­pean iden­tity veri­fi­ca­tion provider.”

About IDnow

With its Iden­tity Veri­fi­ca­tion as a Service (IVaaS) plat­form, IDnow is on a mission to make the connec­ted world a safer place. IDnow’s unma­ni­pulable iden­tity veri­fi­ca­tion is used in all indus­tries where compa­nies conduct online custo­mer inter­ac­tions that require the highest level of secu­rity. IDnow tech­no­logy uses arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence to ensure that all secu­rity features are present on an ID docu­ment and can ther­e­fore relia­bly detect coun­ter­feit docu­ments. Poten­ti­ally, the iden­ti­ties of more than 7 billion custo­mers from 193 diffe­rent count­ries can be verified.
IDnow covers a wide range of use cases both in regu­la­ted indus­tries in Europe and for comple­tely new digi­tal busi­ness models world­wide. Through the plat­form, iden­tity flow can be custo­mi­zed on a case-by-case basis to meet regio­nal, legal and busi­ness requirements.
IDnow is supported by venture capi­tal inves­tors Corsair Capi­tal, BayBG, Seven­ture Part­ner, G+D Ventures and a consor­tium of renow­ned busi­ness angels. Its more than 250 custo­mers include leading inter­na­tio­nal compa­nies from various indus­tries such as Bank of Scot­land, BNP Pari­bas, Commerz­bank, even­tim, Raisin (Welt­spa­ren), Sixt, sola­ris­Bank, Tele­fó­nica Deutsch­land, UBS and Western Union, as well as fintechs such as Fidor, N26, smava and wefox.

The Euro­pean Invest­ment Bank

The Euro­pean Invest­ment Bank (EIB) is the long-term lending insti­tu­tion of the Euro­pean Union. Its share­hol­ders are the member states of the EU. The EIB lends long-term funds to sound projects that meet EU objectives.

The invest­ment offen­sive for Europe

The Invest­ment Plan for Europe aims to boost invest­ment in Europe and thus create jobs. Through guaran­tees from the Euro­pean Fund for Stra­te­gic Invest­ments (EFSI), the EIB and the EIF are able to assume a larger share of the project risk, making it easier for private finan­ciers to also parti­ci­pate in the projects. The projects and agree­ments appro­ved so far for EFSI-guaran­teed finan­cing are expec­ted to mobi­lize €535.4 billion in invest­ments and bene­fit over 1.4 million start-ups and small and medium-sized enter­pri­ses across all EU countries.

London / Deli­vier — Global invest­ment firm The Carlyle Group (NASDAQ: CG) today has agreed to acquire the Acro­tec Group, in part­ner­ship with its manage­ment team, from Castik Capi­tal (photo: Michael Phil­ipps, foun­der of Casik Capi­tal). The tran­sac­tion is subject to regu­la­tory appr­ovals and is expec­ted to close in Q1 2021.

Head­quar­te­red in Deve­lier, Switz­er­land, Acro­tec is a leading inde­pen­dent supplier of high precis­ion indus­trial appli­ca­ti­ons to the watch­ma­king and MedTech indus­tries as well as other high value indus­trial end markets, such as Auto­mo­tive, Elec­tro­nics and Aero­space. The company is a market-leading supplier into the estab­lished Swiss luxury watch-making market, manu­fac­tu­ring criti­cal compon­ents for mecha­ni­cal watch move­ments with major luxury watch brands as key custo­mers. Acro­tec recently expan­ded its posi­tion as a trus­ted MedTech contract manu­fac­tu­rer lever­aging its high-precis­ion engi­nee­ring capa­bi­li­ties to service a diver­si­fied base of global custo­mers. The company employs appro­xi­m­ately 1,200 people across 18 loca­ti­ons and exports to over 40 countries.

Expan­sion plans for Acrotec’s MedTech business 

The Carlyle Group will support Acro­tec in acce­le­ra­ting its growth plan through the deve­lo­p­ment of its exis­ting plat­form and through acqui­si­ti­ons. Lever­aging Carlyle’s global Health­care exper­tise and network, the part­ner­ship will seek to broa­den Acrotec’s MedTech busi­ness with expan­sion into new services and geogra­phies in Europe and in the United States.

Fran­çois Billig, foun­der and CEO of the Acro­tec Group, said: “In Carlyle, I am deligh­ted that we have found a part­ner that under­stands and appre­cia­tes the core values of the Group. This part­ner­ship, which repres­ents an important mile­stone in Acrotec’s history, will signi­fi­cantly acce­le­rate our growth and diver­si­fi­ca­tion plan while remai­ning loyal to our core busi­ness in high precis­ion appli­ca­ti­ons. Castik has been a valuable part­ner over the past four years, support­ing the busi­ness to conso­li­date its leading posi­tion in mecha­ni­cal watch making, and over­see­ing a key phase of its deve­lo­p­ment, while respec­ting the values of the Group.”

Jona­than Zafrani (photo), Mana­ging Direc­tor of the Carlyle Europe Part­ners advi­sory team, said: “We were attrac­ted to Acro­tec given its strong entre­pre­neu­rial spirit, its market-leading posi­ti­ons in the growing Swiss mecha­ni­cal watch market as well as for various precis­ion high-tech appli­ca­ti­ons, and the attrac­tive growth oppor­tu­nity in the global MedTech contract manu­fac­tu­ring market. The company has a strong repu­ta­tion with its custo­mers for manu­fac­tu­ring compon­ents that require the highest level of tech­no­logy and craft­sman­ship. We are exci­ted to part­ner with the Acro­tec manage­ment team and look forward to lever­aging our signi­fi­cant exper­tise in Indus­tri­als and Health­care to support Acrotec’s future growth.”

Michael Phil­lips, Invest­ment Part­ner and member of the Board of Mana­gers of Castik Capi­tal S.à r.l., said: “It was a great plea­sure support­ing Fran­çois and his entre­pre­neu­rial manage­ment team at Acro­tec over the last four years. During Castik’s owner­ship, the company pursued an active conso­li­da­tion stra­tegy, acqui­ring 12 stra­te­gic add-ons and successfully expan­ding into the MedTech indus­try. We wish Acro­tec all the best in the future and are confi­dent that Carlyle is the right part­ner to further drive the company’s excep­tio­nal performance.”

About Acrotec

Acro­tec is an inde­pen­dent group crea­ted by micro­me­cha­nics profes­sio­nals. Its main objec­tive is to be a refe­rence subcon­trac­tor by offe­ring a wide range of manu­fac­tu­ring proces­ses for precis­ion compon­ents. Its stra­tegy is both to provide “Swiss Made” quality products to the entire watch indus­try as well as to the auto­mo­tive, elec­tro­nics, medi­cal, jewelry and aero­nau­tics indus­tries. Acro­tec distin­gu­is­hes itself by the extent of the know-how exer­cised under the same roof, in precis­ion machi­ning (CNC turning, CNC multi­spindle turning, cam-opera­ted turning, 3 & 5 axis milling, micro-turning, trans­fer and machi­ning of precious metals), by support proces­ses (surface treat­ment, cutting, assem­bly, heat treat­ment, deco­ra­tion and laser engra­ving) and by speci­fic proces­ses (realiza­tion of compon­ents by UV-Liga, wire erosion/sinking, machi­ning of synthe­tic stones, lami­na­tion, shaping of springs, realiza­tion of machi­nes and tools and engra­ving on sili­con — DRIE). Curr­ently, the Group has more than 1,200 employees.
www.acrotec.ch

About The Carlyle Group

The Carlyle Group (NASDAQ: CG) is a global invest­ment firm with deep indus­try exper­tise that deploys private capi­tal across four busi­ness segments: Corpo­rate Private Equity, Real Assets, Global Credit and Invest­ment Solu­ti­ons. With $230 billion of assets under manage­ment as of Septem­ber 30, 2020, Carlyle’s purpose is to invest wisely and create value on behalf of its inves­tors, port­fo­lio compa­nies and the commu­ni­ties in which we live and invest. The Carlyle Group employs more than 1,800 people in 30 offices across six conti­nents. Further infor­ma­tion is available at www.carlyle.com. Follow The Carlyle Group on Twit­ter @OneCarlyle