Created by Simon Dawlat and Antoine Guénard in 2015, Batch is recognized on the market and is growing rapidly and steadily thanks to its new generation CRM platform allowing brands to make their customer journeys mobile centric. It has 70 employees spread between Paris and Lyon and over 500 customers, including most media outlets, many key accounts, service companies, and startups as well as 30% of its customers being international – from the UK and Germany.

This €20-million funding round, announced today, will enable Batch to develop three key projects: the creation of 170 new positions and strengthening its unique corporate culture, optimizing and building-up its technological platform and opening new offices in Marseille, London and Berlin.

A key investment in Orange Venture’s strategy
The mobile-first CRM platform offers a holistic vision of the customer and their journey, meaning omnichannel strategies can be implemented. This participation is perfectly in line with Orange Ventures’ investment strategy, which is based on the desire to support future global tech champions that aim to assist the responsible digital transformation of companies and society. The partnership between Orange Ventures and Batch will provide agile and structured access to Orange ecosystems and commercial business units.

An ambitious development in the coming years
Using this funding, Batch’s first priority is to strengthen its corporate culture by investing in projects devoted to its employees, such as management and financial performance transparency, decision-making processes, work from home as well as gender equality and parenthood. The start-up aims to have 150 employees by end 2022, and 250 employees by 2023. This funding will also be used to continue to strengthen and optimize the technological platform while boosting its development and international growth.
“We are delighted with the support from Orange Ventures during this fundraising because we share the same ambitions. But above all, we share strong common values. Beyond the development of our platform and our international growth, this fundraising will allow us to focus on our corporate culture, because people are at the center of our priorities and represent the base of our development,” says Simon Dawlat, co-founder of Batch.
“Batch has managed to position itself as the leader on its domestic market and to develop a corporate culture focused on its employees’ development. In line with its ambition to help develop a new win-win ecosystem between very agile startups and a major group like Orange, Orange Ventures is happy to support Batch to accelerate its international development and continue its efforts to develop a technology that perfectly addresses the companies’ digitalization challenges,” explains Jérôme Berger, President and Managing Partner of Orange Ventures.

About Batch
Batch has developed a multi-channel customer engagement platform designed for the new generation of marketing divisions and focused on the needs of key accounts and scale-ups. Self-financed for over 6 years, with close to 100 employees, Batch raised its first €20 million in 2021 to strengthen its culture, develop its platform and boost its international deployment. The company is based in Paris and Lyon, with offices in several European cities.
For more information: www.batch.com/

Press Release from Batch
Press Release from Orange Ventures (ENG)
Press release from Orange Ventures (FR)

Global sports tech and data company Genius Sports has acquired data-driven marketing tool Spirable.

Spirable is a platform that enables businesses to create, automate, distribute and optimise data-driven video marketing, at scale, and was a trailblazer in facilitating the automated personalisation of video marketing when it was founded in 2015 by brothers Dave and Ger O’Meara.

As the company’s first investor, True has supported Spirable from its early days, providing office space at True’s Innovation Hub in London, as well as support and notably, introductions to leading global retailers, consumer brands and executives from across the True Live Network.

Matt Truman CEO and Co-founder of True said: “We invest in people! Dave and Ger represented everything we look for in people at such an early stage. I am delighted that as their first investors True has been able to play a small part in their huge success over the last five years, through the relevant introductions we’ve made from our unique network and more. We look forward to seeing the business grow from here. For True, this is another significant exit for our growth fund and a strong demonstration of True’s ability to be more helpful to entrepreneurs and management teams.”

Co-founder and CEO of Spirable Ger O’Meara says: “The team at True were early believers in our vision and became our very first investors. They have supported us with funding, sound advice and introductions to major retail brands right along the journey, including DIAGEO and Boots, as well as to growing businesses such as Ribble from their Portfolio. Dave and myself are very grateful for the big role that True has played in Spirable’s journey to date.”

Genius Sports are the official data, technology and media partner to hundreds of organisations globally, and will enhance the Spirable offering through access to official sports data and HTML5 programmatic technology.

Spirable will continue to operate under the Spirable brand, with the same team, innovative product and brilliant service, but with the additional benefit of a world-class data and technology company.  Read more about the acquisition here.

London, UK; Zug, Switzerland – Global investment firm The Carlyle Group (NASDAQ: CG) today announced that its Global Credit platform has agreed to provide a debt financing package of €400 million for Infront Group (“Infront”), a leading sports marketing company based in Switzerland.

Founded in 2003 and headquartered in Zug, Infront is one of the world’s largest sports marketing companies, offering a broad range of services including Media Rights, Sponsorship Rights, Media Production and Digital Solutions. Infront intends to use the funds to refinance its existing debt and to support its expansion plans.

Soenke Ziebell, Vice President Finance & Chief Financial Officer of Infront, said: “With its industry expertise and global reach, we are confident Carlyle is the right financial and strategic partner to support the continued growth of Infront. Our new capital structure will allow Infront to capitalise on a number of strategic initiatives and consolidate our leadership position in key sports and innovative products.”

Taj Sidhu, Head of Carlyle’s European Credit Opportunities advisory team, said: “Carlyle’s global team and flexible capital were critical to our ability to identify and underwrite the entire financing for Infront, one of the most established and highly-regarded sports marketing companies in the world. This investment is a direct result of Carlyle’s sector expertise and thematic focus on media, entertainment and content.”

Nicola Falcinelli, Managing Director in Carlyle’s Global Credit platform, said: “We are delighted to partner with Infront and provide a flexible credit solution to support their growth ambitions. The global sports market is expected to enjoy strong growth, and Infront is well-positioned to benefit from this given its unique portfolio of premium content rights, long-term partnerships with the world’s largest sports organisations, and a diversified offering and customer base.”

The debt financing package for Infront was led by Carlyle’s Credit Opportunities platform, part of Carlyle’s $59 billion Global Credit segment, which regularly pursues investments in privately negotiated capital solutions primarily for upper middle market borrowers, including both private equity sponsored and family or entrepreneur-owned companies.

ENDS

Media Contacts:

The Carlyle Group
EMEA:  Andrew Kenny / andrew.kenny@carlyle.com / +44 7816 176120
USA: Christa Zipf / christa.zipf@carlyle.com / +1-347-621-8967

Infront
Jörg Polzer / joerg.polzer@infrontsports.com / +41 79 47 50 429

About The Carlyle Group
The Carlyle Group (NASDAQ: CG) is a global investment firm with deep industry expertise that deploys private capital across three business segments: Global Private Equity, Global Credit and Investment Solutions. With $260 billion of assets under management as of March 31, 2021, 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 29 offices across five continents. Further information is available at www.carlyle.com. Follow The Carlyle Group on Twitter @OneCarlyle.

About Infront
Connecting fans and consumers to the greatest sports events, Infront, a Wanda Sports Group company, offers everything an event or commercial partner needs to be successful. With a team of around 1,000 experts working from 44 offices across 17 countries around the world, Infront is equipped to tackle any challenge – be it innovative digital solutions, world-class event operations, international media rights distribution, sponsorship sales and activations or cutting-edge media production. Headquartered in Switzerland, Infront is passionate and #AllAboutSports. @infrontsports www.infront.sport.

The Philippines’ #1 e-commerce enabler Great Deals e-commerce Corporation raised US$ 30M (P 1.4B) capital in its Series B funding round.

The said funding round was led by Fast Group, a leading logistics firm in the Philippines with the support from CVC Capital Partners, one of the world’s largest global private equity firm with US$ 118B in assets under management (AUM). Navegar, a private equity firm that infused US$ 12M Series A fund into Great Deals, also contributed to this funding round.  The transaction was advised by Rocket Equities.

Steve Sy, Founder & CEO of Great Deals, William Chiongbian II, Group President and CEO of Fast Group, and Javier Infante, Managing Partner of Navegar, along with their management teams and advisors, participated in the signing of definitive agreements.

“The Fast Group sees a lot of synergies with Great Deals in building capability. We are privileged to contribute to the growth of Philippine e-commerce, as it relies heavily on a strong supply chain backbone,” Chiongbian said.

“We are thrilled to be teaming up with Steve and Great Deals, the country’s largest e-Commerce enabler. We envision strategic collaborations between Great Deal’s high-growth e-Commerce solutions and Fast’s leading position in Philippine logistics. This partnership also marks Fast’s first M&A transaction since CVC’s investment less than 6 months ago” said Brice Cu, Managing Director and Head of the Philippines, for CVC Capital Partners.

Great Deals will deploy this growth capital in tech development and the construction of an automated state-of-the-art fulfillment center — both critical to meet the growing demand in e-commerce and to level-up the game in customer experience.

“We love a good challenge.  We recognize that Philippine logistics is by far the toughest across the ASEAN region and remains to impede our e-Commerce penetration outside GMA.  With this funding and strategic support from our new investors, this opens new opportunities to drive forward Instant Commerce – delivery under one hour, wherever you are. We can reach and serve more Filipinos faster and safer. That is the Next Big Thing that can boost further the digital economy in our country,” Sy said.

Established in 2014, Sy founded Great Deals after spending many years as an entrepreneur in the retail and e-commerce sectors. He identified a stark need to enable entrepreneurs like himself to succeed in this new space.

With Sy’s bootstrapping style, Great Deals grew into a multi billion-peso company, posting four-fold growth in 2020. Its enviable list of global brand partners includes Abbott, L’Oréal, Unilever, Nestle, Samsonite, GSK, Bayer, and Fila, among others.

Great Deals, offers end-to-end business solutions ranging from digital marketing, content creation, storefront management, web design, business analytics and customer service to warehousing and peak-scaling fulfillment.

Eurazeo is announcing the sale of 49 % of its stake in Trader Interactive, a provider of online advertising & marketing solutions to the powersports, recreational vehicle, commercial truck & equipment industries based in Virginia (USA), to carsales the largest online automotive advertising platform in Australia with a growing presence in Latin America and Asia. Internationally, carsales operates several marketplaces across both the automotive and specialty vehicle segments with leading properties such as demotores.com in Argentina and EnCar in South Korea.

Under this agreement, Trader Interactive is valued at $1.625bn corresponding to 26,5x CY 2020 Adjusted EBITDA. With this operation, Eurazeo and its affiliates show a total valuation on a realized and unrealized basis of 2.8x their original investment.
The sale of the 49% stake represents pre-tax proceeds of ~$280m for Eurazeo and its affiliates, of which $190m for Eurazeo. This represents 1.5x on their total initial investment1. carsales has a call option for the 51% remaining equity stake in Trader Interactive.

Trader Interactive was the first investment made by Eurazeo’s mid-large buyout team in the US in June 2017. Over the last four years, Trader Interactive has significantly reinforced its leading position across each of its verticals with the support of Eurazeo. Through its relentless focus on building a world class technology and data platform along with targeted and strategic M&A, Trader continues to deliver increasing value to its dealers every day.

Marc Frappier, Member of the Executive Board, Managing Partner of mid-large buyout:
« Trader Interactive exemplifies Eurazeo’s strategy to select and support market leaders across attractive industries supported by strong fundamentals and clear growth drivers. We look forward to accompanying Trader in the next stage of its journey. »

Vivianne Akriche, Managing Director, mid-large buyout, added:
« carsales has a strong track record of building valuable international partnerships in vertical marketplaces. We are very excited to partner with carsales for Trader Interactive’s next chapter and are convinced that combining our respective experiences will further accelerate the Company’s transformation and growth. »

ABOUT EURAZEO
Eurazeo is a leading global investment group, with a diversified portfolio of €21.8 billion in assets under management, including €15.0 billion from third parties, invested in 450 companies. With its considerable private equity, private debt, real estate and infrastructure expertise, Eurazeo accompanies companies of all sizes, supporting their development through the commitment of its nearly 300 professionals and by offering deep sector expertise, a gateway to global markets, and a responsible and stable foothold for transformational growth. Its solid institutional and family shareholder base, robust financial structure free of structural debt, and flexible investment horizon enable Eurazeo to support its companies over the long term.
Eurazeo has offices in Paris, New York, Sao Paulo, Seoul, Shanghai, Singapore, London, Luxembourg, Frankfurt, Berlin and Madrid.
Eurazeo is listed on Euronext Paris.
ISIN: FR0000121121 – Bloomberg: RF FP – Reuters: EURA.PA

EURAZEO CONTACTS
Virginie Christnacht
HEAD OF COMMUNICATIONS vchristnacht@eurazeo.com
+33 (0)1 44 15 76 44
Pierre Bernardin
HEAD OF INVESTOR RELATIONS pbernardin@eurazeo.com
+33 (0)1 44 15 16 76
PRESS CONTACT
David Sturken
MAITLAND/AMO dsturken@maitland.co.uk+44 (0) 7990 595 913