Unily (or the “Company”), a world-leading employee experience platform provider, today announces it has attracted a significant growth investment from CVC Growth Funds (“CVC Growth”), the high-growth, technology-focused strategy of one of the leading global private equity firms, CVC Capital Partners (“CVC”), with significant participation from management and existing investors Silversmith Capital Partners (“Silversmith”) and Farview Equity Partners (“Farview”).
Post-investment, CVC Growth will hold a majority stake in the Company and will work with the existing investors to support the incumbent management team on their growth strategy. The partnership with CVC Growth will further strengthen Unily’s position as a world-leading employee experience platform, accelerate product development, expand its footprint with existing customers, and scale its go-to-market organization to continue acquiring new customers. CVC Growth’s investment comes two years after the initial investment from Silversmith and Farview.
Founded in 2005, Unily is the creator of an award-winning employee experience platform used by enterprises to improve communication, collaboration, and productivity amongst their employees. Unily’s sophisticated cloud-native SaaS platform offers customers scalability, a rich feature set and deep integrations with other mission-critical enterprise systems. The Company employs 250 people globally across North America, Europe, and Asia. In 2021, Unily became the first platform to receive four Nielsen Norman Group Best Intranet awards in a single year.
Unily continues to experience rapid growth across its global customer base driven by enterprises seeking out best-in-class software to replace old legacy custom-built platforms. Today, more than 300 enterprises and roughly 3.5 million of their employees rely on Unily’s employee experience platform. The Company’s portfolio of Fortune 500 clients spans a large range of industries and includes high-profile brands.
Unily recently announced the launch of a ground-breaking new engagement automation module at its annual employee experience conference Unite 21 in front of a global audience which included 75% of the Fortune 100. Engagement automation brings marketing automation features to enterprise internal communications, utilizing the latest advancements in AI technology to support the delivery of hyper-personalized workplace experiences.
Will Saville, Co-Founder and CEO of Unily, said: “CVC is one of the largest and most well recognized private equity firms in the world. Seeing their passion for our category and desire to back a leader in the employee experience space made the decision to partner with them extremely easy. My team and I are incredibly excited for the next stage of our journey together.”
Sebastian Künne, Managing Director at CVC Growth, commented: “Engaging employees in their increasingly hybrid and digital workplaces has never been more important than it is today. We see this as a trend that is only going in one direction, with more and more businesses and leaders looking to improve employee communication, collaboration and productivity in a rapidly changing digital world. We have followed Unily for several years as part of our long-standing efforts in human capital management software and look forward to working closely with Will and his team, as well as Silversmith and Farview, to unlock the business’s full potential.”
Going forward, Unily will continue to be a privately-held, independent company, led by its existing leadership team and with ongoing dedication to delivering superior services to its customers.
The transaction is expected to close in Q1 2022. For product demos, images, videos, or to speak with a Unily spokesperson, please email: marketing@unily.com.
Arma Partners served as financial advisors and Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom served as legal advisors to Unily’s management and institutional shareholders. Shea & Company served as financial advisors and White & Case served as legal advisors to CVC Growth. Sixth Street provided debt financing to support the transaction.
About Unily
Founded in 2005, Unily is the creator of an award-winning employee experience platform used by enterprises to improve communication, collaboration, and productivity amongst their employees. Unily’s sophisticated cloud-native SaaS platform offers customers scalability, a rich feature set and deep integrations with other mission-critical enterprise systems. The Company employs 250 people globally across North America, Europe, and Asia. Its portfolio of Fortune 500 clients spans a large range of industries and includes high-profile brands. In 2021, Unily became the first platform to receive four Nielsen Norman Group Best Intranet awards in a single year. For further information about Unily please visit: www.unily.com. Follow Unily on LinkedIn here.
About CVC Capital Partners
CVC is a leading private equity and investment advisory firm with a network of 25 offices throughout Europe, Asia and the US, with approximately US$125 billion of assets under management. Since its founding in 1981, CVC has secured commitments in excess of US$165 billion from some of the world’s leading institutional investors across its private equity and credit strategies. Funds managed or advised by CVC are invested in more than 100 companies worldwide, which have combined annual sales of over US$100 billion and employ more than 450,000 people. For further information about CVC please visit: www.cvc.com. Follow CVC on LinkedIn here.
About CVC Growth Partners
Launched in 2014, CVC Growth Partners is the growth-oriented middle-market technology investment arm of CVC Capital Partners. CVC Growth Partners primarily targets equity investments between $50 million and $250 million in North America and Europe and manages over US$2.5 billion in assets across two dedicated funds. For further information about CVC Growth Partners please visit: www.cvc.com/growth.
About Silversmith Capital Partners
Founded in 2015, Silversmith Capital Partners is a Boston-based growth equity firm with $2.0 billion of capital under management. Silversmith’s mission is to partner with and support the best entrepreneurs in growing, profitable technology and healthcare companies. Representative investments include ActiveCampaign, Appfire, Centauri Health Solutions, DistroKid, impact.com, Iodine Software, LifeStance Health, Panalgo, Unily, Upperline Health, Validity, and Webflow. The partners have served on the boards of numerous successful growth companies including ABILITY Network, Archer Technologies, Dealer.com, Liazon, Liberty Dialysis, MedHOK, Passport Health, SurveyMonkey, and Wrike. For more information about Silversmith, please visit www.silversmith.com.
About Farview Equity Partners
Farview Equity Partners specialises in investing in growth-oriented enterprise technology companies in Europe. Founded in 2019, Farview’s mission is to empower European enterprise and financial technology companies to grow beyond their current horizons. Farview invests exclusively in SaaS; technology-enabled information and business services; and financial technology companies. The firm makes both minority and control investments that range from €15 to €50 million. In addition to capital, Farview delivers the entire firm to every portfolio company, leveraging its deep network, extensive resources and pattern recognition of past successes to help drive differentiated outcomes. For more information, visit: www.farviewequity.com.
