Viking Venture invests in View Software

Viking Venture

Viking Venture invests in Norwegian B2B Software Company View. The company is a leading provider of software for maintenance of real estate, machinery and vehicles. The company is also providing software for production optimisation and control.

View Software aims to provide its customers with better information about their assets such as buildings, machinery or vehicles. The company has 480 customers sharing a common need for better oversight over production, assets and technical equipment. View Software provides detailed information about condition, former history, and warranties of the assets, included which resources in terms of parts and personnel available to do corrective actions on the equipment.

– We are impressed by the quality of the team as well as their products and customers, commented the recently appointed chairman of View Software, Partner Joar Welde of Viking Venture.

– View is thrilled by having Viking Venture as investor. Viking Venture has consistently proved their ability to bring companies similar to View to a new level. A knowledgeable and experienced partner as Viking Venture is important in order to exploit our international potential, said Mr. Pål Einar Berntsen, CEO of View Software.

Viking Venture owns 49% of View Software after the investment and contributes with experience and knowledge of best practice from across its portfolio of investments.

– Our investment focus is Business To Business (B2B) Software companies with a recurring revenue business modell. We experience strong synergies across our investments and look forward to contribute to increased growth in View Software, said Mr. Erik Hagen, Managing Partner of Viking Venture.

Widar Salbuvik, a long term investor in View Software who is currently increasing his investment in View Software, commented: – The company has grown a lot both in terms of revenue and maturity over the last years. Thus this is a natural point in time to invite an active investor such as Viking Venture into the company. We have great expectations to the cooperation.

About View Software AS

View Software is a leading provider of software for management of maintenance and production planning. More than 12500 users depend daily on View as a tool for maintaining more than 10 million objects such as machinery, vehicles and buildings. The company has 48 employees and is headquartered out of Moss, Norway with offices in Trondheim and Notodden. View Software reported revenues of 46 million NOK in 2016 with a corresponding operational income before depreciations (EBITDA) of 10.5 milion NOK. More information on view.no.

About Viking Venture

Viking Venture is a leading Nordic Venture Fund focused on B2B Software Companies with a recurring revenue business modell. Viking Venture has invested in more than 40 companies and has more than 1.5 billion NOK under management. The company has its headquarter in Trondheim, Norway. More information on vikingventure.com.

Categories: News

Tags:

Ardian acquires stake in Abvent

Paris, 11 May 2017
– Ardian, the independent private investment company, today announced itsacquisition of a minority stake in the Abvent Group, a leading publisher and distributor of software forarchitects.
Founded in 1985 by three French architects, Abvent is the leading French provider of image and design
software to architects. The Group has developed a proprietary offer combining 3D visualisation software
and project management solutions via BIM (Building Information Modelling). It is also the exclusive
distributor in France and French-speaking Switzerland of the industry standard design and project
management system for architects, ArchiCAD. Xavier Soule, CEO of Abvent, said: “Following the l
aunch of our BIM offer and the acquisition of Ka-Ra, asoftware publisher specialising in 3D visualisation,
we wish to continue this momentum alongside a partner that understands the dynamics of our market and our
software.”
Philippe Butty, co-founder, added: “For us, Ardian was the natural partner in light of its ability to provide
tactical support and its keen understanding of the strategic challenges we face.”Beyond using Ardian’s network and expertise in supporting growing companies, this partnership aims to help the Abvent management team achieve its goal of
increasing market share in the BIM sector. The Group is one of the few players in this growing mar
ket to have succeeded in developing an offer that is compatible with all existing operating systems.
Alexis Saada, Managing Director at Ardian Growth, added: “We are delighted to be entering into this
partnership with Abvent. Xavier and his team won us over with their agility and ambitious vision: we are
committed to providing them with the necessary means to achieve it.”
Bertrand Schapiro, Senior Investment Manager at Ardian Growth, added: “Abvent’s positioning enables
us to consider a targeted external growth strategy to strengthen its offer that is already unique in its market.”
ABOUT ABVENT
Founded in 1985 by French architects, Abvent is a group currently based in Paris, the leader in software
and services for architects and construction professionals (ARCHICAD, ClimaBIM, Rhino 3D, BIMoffice),
and a key player in the imaging segment (Twinmotion, Artlantis, iVIsit360, RenderIn).
Along with its expansion in France, and to support its international development, Abvent has opened
several subsidiaries (Switzerland, the US, Luxembourg, Hungary) and has a network of distributors in 80 countries.

Categories: News

Tags:

Investment Plan for Europe: EIB supports MariaDB with financing for accelerated growth

The European Investment Bank (EIB) announced a EUR 25m funding of MariaDB, the company behind the fastest growing Open Source database, to support the company’s next stage of growth and database innovation. This EIB operation is guaranteed under the European Fund for Strategic Investments (EFSI), a key element of the European Commission’s Investment Plan for Europe, aiming at reviving investment in strategic projects around Europe.

This is the EIB’s first financing for MariaDB. The EIB funding will be used to further product innovation for MariaDB’s expanding global enterprise client base and increase its sales and marketing teams in Europe, America, and Asia. Specifically, within Europe, the company will expand its European operations with new engineering hires in Helsinki.

Industry analysts provide different estimates on the database market, but they agree that it is in the midst of a massive shakeup that will disrupt established legacy vendors as businesses around the world look to adopt modern, open source databases. Companies like Telefonica, DBS Bank, Teleplan and more are re-architecting their infrastructure to reduce costs and modernize their business.

Industry estimates on the adoption of open source and growth of the database market include:

  • IDC expects the overall database market to reach $50 billion by 2017, up from $40 billion in 2015, according to their worldwide database forecast.*
  • Gartner estimates that more than 70 percent of new in-house applications will be developed on open source databases, while 50 percent of existing commercial databases will convert to open source by 2018.**
  • The popularity of open source database systems has increased from 35 percent four years ago to a new record high of 46 percent according to DB-engines, which tracks database popularity.

Supporting Quotes:

EIB Vice-President Ambroise Fayolle, whose responsibilities include EFSI and innovation, said: “We are pleased to be partnering with MariaDB in this breakthrough operation as it will enable the EU bank to support a European software company particularly strong in innovation and with significant growth potential. This is also what the Investment Plan for Europe is about: strengthening Europe’s global competitiveness by supporting high-skilled employment opportunities and enhancing Europe’s position as a major technology supplier.”

Michael Howard, CEO of MariaDB Corporation, said: “The investment from the EIB accelerates our ability to expand our product capabilities and continue to develop features that make MariaDB the easiest to use, the easiest to extend and the easiest to deploy in any environment. This funding is part of a multi-step strategy to strengthen MariaDB across Europe, America and Asia, and will help foster the next phase of growth for the company.”

European Commission Vice-President Jyrki Katainen, responsible for Jobs, Growth, Investment and Competitiveness, said: “Developing new, innovative products requires sustained investment. I am delighted that the Investment Plan is unlocking finance to facilitate MariaDB’s development programme, that includes expanding their engineering team as well as increasing international sales and marketing operations. Focus on innovation and research as well as reaching out to new markets will help the company succeed in a highly competitive market.”

 

Background information:

The European Investment Bank (EIB) is the long-term lending institution of the European Union owned by its Member States. It makes long-term finance available for sound investment in order to contribute towards EU policy goals. In 2016 the EIB fostered projects in Finland with financing totalling EUR 2.22bn – an all-time record high for EIB commitment in Finland.

The Investment Plan for Europe, the so-called Juncker Plan, is one of President Jean-Claude Juncker’s top priorities. It focuses on boosting European investments to create jobs and growth by making smarter use of new and existing financial resources, removing obstacles to investment and providing visibility and technical assistance to investment projects.

The European Fund for Strategic Investments (EFSI) is the central pillar of the Investment Plan. It provides a first loss guarantee, allowing the EIB to invest in more, often riskier, projects. The EFSI is already showing concrete results. The projects and agreements approved for financing under the EFSI so far are expected to mobilise over EUR 183 billion in total investments and support over 427,000 SMEs across all 28 Member States.

In September 2016, President Juncker proposed to extend the EFSI by increasing its firepower and duration as well as reinforcing its strengths. You can find the latest EFSI figures by sector and by country here.

MariaDB
MariaDB Corporation is the company behind MariaDB, the fastest growing Open Source database. MariaDB is the default in major Linux distributions like Red Hat, Ubuntu and SUSE, which in total reaches more than 60 million. MariaDB can be deployed in a hybrid, public or private cloud with technologies like Docker, Microsoft Azure, Amazon Web Services and OpenStack. Over the past year, the company expanded its product portfolio to include MariaDB MaxScale and MariaDB ColumnStore, enabling a broader range of use cases across the enterprise. MariaDB, with its commitment to community innovation and customer success, is the leading database preferred by developers and trusted by enterprises.

*IDC: Worldwide Relational Database Management Systems Forecast, 2015.
**Gartner: Emerging Technology Trends Create Opportunities for DBMS Cost Optimization, April 21, 2016.

Press contacts:

EIB:
Alicja Chytla, a.chytla@eib.org, tel.: +352 4379 88233
Website: www.eib.org/press – Press Office: +352 4379 21000 – press@eib.org
Follow us on Twitter @eib

MariaDB
Cindy Clement
+1 303 241 4818
mailto:mariadb@clementpeterson.co
Website: https://mariadb.com
Follow us on Twitter: @mariadb

Oakley Capital – Acquisition of Plesk

Oakley Capital logo

Oakley Capital Private Equity III (“Fund III”) has completed a deal to acquire the assets and operations of Plesk, at an enterprise value of $105 million, as a carve out from the Parallels Group. Fund III has invested $27.4 million (€25.2 million) for a 51% controlling stake in the business. The investment in Plesk represents another primary, proprietary deal in one of Oakley’s core sectors, originating from long-standing relationships within the hosting industry.

First released in 1999, Plesk is one of the most widely used control panels and software platforms for simplifying the lives of Web Professionals. Plesk’s web-server management tools secure and automate server and website administration as well as operations. Key features include the automation and management of domain names, email accounts, web applications, programming languages, databases and infrastructure tasks to provide a ready-to-code environment and strong security across all layers and operating systems. The Plesk software platform operates on more than 350,000 servers globally, supporting the operations of more than 10 million websites and 18 million email boxes. Plesk is available in 32 languages globally and many of the top cloud and hosting service providers partner with Plesk.

Plesk generated revenues of $28 million and EBITDA of approximately $14 million for the year ended 31 December 2016. The business is expected to drive growth through a number of clearly identified revenue and operational initiatives, made possible by focussed management following its separation from the Parallels Group.

Arthur Mornington, Partner Oakley Capital, commented:

“We are delighted to be investing in Plesk, which is a widely used software platform with significant growth potential in a sector we know well. We are excited to be partnering with a strong management team and we believe that our combined experience will support the business as it moves into the next phase of its development.”

Categories: News

Tags:

Summa Equity invests in Pagero Group

Summa Equity invests in Pagero Group, a company that develops and markets Pagero Online, a cloud-based network platform for communication of business documents within the purchase-to-pay, order-to-cash and logistic-to-pay (TMS) processes. Summa Equity becomes the largest shareholder. CEO Bengt Nilsson and management will remain invested alongside Summa Equity.

Christian Melby, Partner at Summa Equity, said : “In our extensive search for the next global trend, we have met a lot of companies with interesting applications for business support within procurement and order-to-cash. However, most of them were either built on a closed network or traditional EDI connections. We believe in Pagero’s philosophy of offering an open platform, connecting businesses with all their customers and suppliers in an easy and cost-efficient way that allows room for correct and fast decision-making in a global and competitive world.”

Since its foundation, Pagero has developed into a modern SaaS provider with more than 80 per cent recurring revenues, over 20,000 customers, more than 1.5 million transactions per month, and a network that reaches millions of companies directly and via roaming agreements. The value-added services enable Pagero’s customers to achieve accurate data and obtain a 100 per cent digital inbound and outbound business document flow, resulting in minimal error handling, compliance with local VAT regulation and control over company spend. Pagero Online is independent of ERP systems and therefore suits companies of all sizes and within all industries. It is also interconnected with an extensive number of other networks for global reach.

Bengt Nilsson, CEO of Pagero, said: “Summa Equity’s confidence in Pagero is a clear sign that our choice of strategy and business model are right. Thanks to Summa Equity’s funding and commitment to Pagero, we can continue with our growth strategy and bring our services to a market largely driven by legislation with high demands on compliance. Our goal is to be the top-of-mind player on the market enabling companies all over the globe to streamline their business processes with accurate data and a 100 per cent digital business document flow.”

Pagero has over 190 employees and a strong innovation focus, with 50 employees in R&D. It is headquartered in Gothenburg, Sweden, with offices in Stockholm, Oslo, Copenhagen, Helsinki, London, Dublin, Amsterdam, Rome, Madrid, Paris, Istanbul and Dubai. Pagero is in an expansive growth phase and saw revenues grow to SEK 168m in 2016.

The investment will be made through a rights issue of SEK 100 million and the acquisition of shares from existing shareholders. Summa Equity will support Pagero through continued investments in R&D, new markets, and people with the ambition of sustaining the company’s high growth trajectory. Pagero is expected to benefit from the global trends towards increasing digitalisation and automation of business processes, and increasing regulatory demands on compliance.

Ends

For more information, please contact:

Christian Melby, Partner, Summa Equity, +47 958 13 277, christian.melby@summaequity.com

Bengt Nilsson, CEO, Pagero Group, +46 708 11 22 11, bengt.nilsson@pagero.com

About Summa Equity

Summa Equity was formed in 2016 by partners with a shared vision of building a leading specialised private equity firm in the Nordic lower mid-market, positioned to capture the investment opportunity provided by the thematic megatrends expected to drive growth over the long term. The firm focuses on sectors related to four megatrend-driven themes: resource scarcity, energy efficiency, changing demographics and tech-enabled businesses. Summa Equity closed its first fund in February 2017 with commitments of SEK 4.5 billion.

Categories: News

Tags:

New Access Banking Software acquires the Ambit Private Banking business

No Comments

blackfincp

New Access Banking Software, a global provider of critical front-office software solutions to the private banking industry, announced today the acquisition of the Ambit Private Banking business from FIS™. The Ambit Private Banking business, provides a comprehensive suite of software solutions, including Apsys and CIM, designed to help Swiss and international private banks to build a strong competitive advantage. The solution suite includes core banking, client management, analysis and control, market management, fund accounting and alternative investments solutions.

This transaction will create significant commercial synergies between New Access and Ambit Private Banking solutions. It will also allow the group to further invest in R&D to develop software solutions adapted to the private banking market shaped by disruptive technologies, and tightening regulatory requirements. “New Access’ solutions are aimed at turning these challenges into opportunities, and getting tangible benefits for their customers”, said Vitus Rotzer, General Manager of the Ambit Private Banking business, who becomes Managing Director responsible for business development of the combined group. “We are confident the addition of the Ambit Private Banking solution will benefit customers of both businesses through an enriched product and services offering, while bringing a comprehensive, integrated solution to the private banking market.”

Categories: News

Tags:

HgCapital announces an investment in Mitratech

HGCapital

HgCapital has announced today an investment in Mitratech, a leading global provider of legal, risk and compliance software serving multinationals and SMEs across Europe and the US. HgCapital will be the lead investor in the new transaction structure, alongside TA Associates and the management team at Mitratech. The terms of this transaction were not disclosed.

Founded in 1987, Mitratech offers mission critical enterprise legal management (“ELM”) and enterprise risk management (“ERM”) software; its flagship product offering is a sector leading and award-winning legal matter management and spend management platform for large corporate legal departments, enabling customers to manage their internal workflows, documents (“system of record”), deadlines and communications, as well as providing an e-billing solution to collaborate with external legal advisors on budgeting and invoicing. Today the company provides legal, compliance, and operational risk solutions to 1,200 corporations across the globe with more than 500,000 users in over 160 countries. Its operations are supported by offices in the US, UK, and Australia.

This investment by the HgCapital TMT team follows many years of experience in the regulatory-driven business software space. Mitratech demonstrates many of the business model characteristics that HgCapital looks for, including: a business-critical product; a high proportion of repeatable revenues; strong customer loyalty; an opportunity for M&A; and a strong management team with a proven track record in both organic and M&A-led growth.

“We are delighted to be working with Jason Parkman and his talented management team, alongside TA Associates,” said Jean-Baptiste Brian, a Director in the HgCapital TMT team. “HgCapital has a strong track record of successful investments in regulatory compliance-driven software companies. We are impressed with the excellent progress Mitratech has made in establishing itself as a global player in this sector, and we look forward to supporting their continued growth going forward.”

“TA Associates has been a strong partner for us over the past 18 months, and an important part of our unprecedented recent growth. We look forward to continuing this relationship for years to come,” said Jason Parkman, Mitratech CEO. “Our new partnership with HgCapital brings us additional strength to fuel our growth in legal and risk management generally, as well as the focus to accelerate our current momentum of international expansion. The combination of these two strategic investors provides more access to global resources and enables us to invest even more to deliver innovation and value for our clients.”

“Since forming our strategic partnership with Mitratech in September 2015, it has been a pleasure to partner with Jason Parkman and his team,” said Hythem El-Nazer, a Managing Director at TA Associates. “The business has more than doubled during our partnership and, more importantly, Mitratech has solidified itself as a leader in the Enterprise Legal and Risk Management software market. We look forward to continuing to support Mitratech and partnering with HgCapital as the business continues to expand globally.”

Categories: News

Tags:

OpenSolution acquires Lindberg & Frisk AB

ik-investment-partners

OpenSolution acquires Lindberg & Frisk AB

OpenSolution, a leading Nordic payment solution provider, today announced the acquisition of Lindberg & Frisk AB.

OpenSolution covers the entire value chain of payment solutions, making it a single point of contact for >8,000 customers throughout Scandinavia. The company was acquired by the IK Small Cap I Fund in June 2016.

For more information (in Swedish), please see http://www.opensolution.se/opensolution-forvarvar-lindberg-frisk-ab/

Categories: News

Tags:

Cherwell Software Secures $50 Million Investment from KKR to Further Advance Service Management Leadership

No Comments

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo., Feb. 27, 2017 — Cherwell Software, LLC, a leading provider of IT service management (ITSM) solutions, announced today that it has secured $50 million in funding from KKR, a global investment firm. KKR is making the investment through its Next Generation Technology Fund, which focuses on investments in software, security, Internet, digital media, and information services.

KKR joins existing Cherwell investor, Insight Venture Partners, which has made a series of investments beginning in 2012. With the support of KKR’s funding, Cherwell will accelerate research and development and make strategic investments aimed at broadening and deepening its portfolio of IT and enterprise service management offerings.

Vini Letteri, a member of KKR’s Technology, Media & Telecommunications industry team, will be joining Cherwell’s board of managers.

“The IT service management market is a large and rapidly growing sector undergoing a period of disruption as new, emerging technologies replace older legacy systems. With IT teams’ increasing importance within organizations, ensuring there is no interruption to IT services and that customer satisfaction is high are paramount to any business,” said Vini Letteri, Director, KKR. “Since its founding, Cherwell has been entirely customer-centric in its focus and is led by a seasoned, passionate, and industry-leading management team. Its platform provides unparalleled value and the ultimate flexibility to its customers to operate in any industry and in any environment—on premises, cloud, or hybrid. We are really pleased to partner with them to help accelerate Cherwell’s future growth and leadership in this dynamic industry.”

Named by IDC as the fastest growing vendor in its 2015 Worldwide Problem Management Software Market Shares report, Cherwell has become a force multiplier for IT organizations that need to become more innovative and agile, while reducing the total cost of ownership (TCO) of their service management initiatives. The ITSM market is widely known for expensive, inflexible tools supplied by vendors whose business practices are characterized by confusing licensing models and punitive pricing.

Cherwell has driven strong growth in the ITSM market by delivering:

  • A codeless platform that enables rapid solution customization and hassle-free upgrades
  • A transparent and straightforward concurrent licensing model, along with predictable, all-inclusive pricing
  • A “customers first” philosophy which has resulted in 98%+ customer satisfaction rate

“IT teams are increasingly abandoning their legacy service management tools in favor of powerful, modern, and agile solutions that empower them to confidently tackle business challenges and opportunities,” said Craig Harper, Chief Executive Officer of Cherwell. “KKR’s investment in Cherwell is validation that our core principles and areas of focus will continue to drive phenomenal growth and fulfill our goal of being the best service management solution on the planet.”

The KKR investment follows a particularly strong 2016 for Cherwell. 2016 highlights included:

  • Record bookings and a record number of new customers, including marquis brands across transportation, financial services, healthcare, retail, government, manufacturing, and higher education
  • Acquisition of Advanced Marketplace, an IT consulting firm specializing in development of business solutions for the Cherwell® Service Management platform, signaling Cherwell’s commitment to accelerate its delivery of enterprise service management solutions
  • Appointment of Craig Harper as Cherwell’s Chief Executive Officer; and Patrick Malaperiman, Vice President, EMEA
  • Establishment of strategic partnerships with Microsoft® Azure® and Amazon Web Services (AWS), demonstrating Cherwell’s continued commitment to customer choice through flexible deployment options including on-premises, SaaS hosted by Cherwell, or hosted on the public cloud—and the ability to switch any time at no cost

“Cherwell’s continued double digit market share growth can be attributed to the flexible and competitive licensing, deployment, and pricing options of its platform,” said Robert Young, Research Director, ITSM and Client Virtualization Software, IDC. “Likewise, with the company’s recent product enhancements in the performance and scalability of its platform, as well as public cloud hosting options and integrations, IDC believes that Cherwell is well positioned to increase its enterprise adoption and maintain an aggressive growth trajectory.”

About Cherwell Software

A global leader in IT and enterprise service management, Cherwell Software empowers IT to lead through the use of powerful and intuitive technology that enables better, faster, and more affordable innovation. The Cherwell® Service Management platform is built from the ground up with a unique codeless architecture that enables rapid time to value, infinite flexibility, and frictionless upgrades every time—at a fraction of the cost and complexity of legacy solutions. Because of Cherwell’s focus on delivering solutions that are easy to configure, customize, and use, IT organizations extend the Cherwell platform to solve a wide range of IT and business problems. With an unwavering commitment to putting customers first and being easy to do business with, Cherwell enjoys 98%+ customer satisfaction. Cherwell has a global network of expert partners serving customers in more than 40 countries. Corporate headquarters are in Colorado, USA, with global offices in the United Kingdom, Germany and Australia.

About KKR

KKR is a leading global investment firm that manages investments across multiple asset classes including private equity, energy, infrastructure, real estate, credit and hedge funds. KKR aims to generate attractive investment returns by following a patient and disciplined investment approach, employing world‐class people, and driving growth and value creation at the asset level. KKR invests its own capital alongside its partners’ capital and brings opportunities to others through its capital markets business. References to KKR’s investments may include the activities of its sponsored funds. For additional information about KKR & Co. L.P. (NYSE:KKR), please visit KKR’s website at www.kkr.com and follow us on Twitter @KKR_Co or #KKRTMTGrowth for related news on KKR’s TMT platform.

Norvestor invests in IT Gården

Norvestor

Norvestor VIIL.P.(“Norvestor”), a fund managed by Norvestor Equity AS, has signed an agreement to invest in IT Gården i Landskrona AB(“IT Gården”)

IT Gården has experienced solid growth over the last yearsand established an attractive position
as a leading regional IT services outsourcing provider in the Skåne region in Sweden. The company delivers IT services within IT outsourcing and infrastructure, virtualisation and client platforms as well as related products.

“IT Gården has since its inception focused on delivering superior customer experience and efficient IT solutions.
Over the last couple of years, we have been searching for a partner that shares our vision of putting the customer experience first. In Norvestor we have found a partner that truly understands our business and that can help us, both to expand geographically but also to explore new business opportunities.
We are extremely happy about this new partnership and we are confident that it will allow us to deliver an even better customer experience in the future”, says Jan Swedin, CEO of IT Gården. “We have followed the market for outsourcing of IT services for several years, and are very pleased with the agreement to partner with IT Gården.

The company has established a unique position within IT outsourcing for small and medium-
sized enterprises in Southern Sweden. We see a significant potential for continued growth for the company, in addition to several consolidation possibilities in a fragmented IT outsourcing market, making it an ideal platform for Norvestor.”,
says Henning Vold,Partner at Norvestor Equity and chairman designate in IT Gården.
Following the acquisition, Norvestor will become the largest shareholder in IT Gården with approximately 77
% of the shares; the management and employees will hold the remaining shares.

IT Gården is headquartered in Landskrona, Sweden, and employs 90 people.
The company had consolidated revenues of NOK 179 million in 2015 1 and NOK 197 millionin 2016¹.
***
1 IT Gården’s financial year ends in June

Categories: News

Tags: