Adelis creates Danish market leader in IT outsourcing by merging IT Relation, Front-data and DSI-NEXT

admin June 30, 2016 No Comments

Adelis Equity Partners (“Adelis”) has acquired majority stakes in IT Relation, Front-data and DSI-NEXT. The companies’ management teams continue as minority shareholders in the new setup.

The combined businesses will be the largest provider of IT outsourcing services to small businesses in Denmark with around DKK 300 million in revenues, 200 employees and offices in Herning, Århus, Odense and Copenhagen.

”With the combination of IT Relation, Front-data and DSI-NEXT, we have made four investments and three add-on acquisitions in Denmark since establishing Adelis less than three years ago. We are impressed by the three companies’ niche focus on small businesses, their consistent growth, and their strong cultures that make them leaders in this industry,” said Steffen Thomsen of Adelis.

“This acquisition creates a strong platform for growth. We have experience with similar companies where we have focused on finding the best platform in terms of a scalable business model combined with a strong company culture and a skilled management team,” Joel Russ of Adelis added.

The three businesses will continue activities under their own brands as part of the IT Relation Front-data Group and have access to capital and knowledge that will make it possible to accelerate their positive business development.

“We are pleased and proud to be able to work with Adelis given their significant experience building strong businesses through consolidation. Furthermore, they can contribute with their insights from previous technology investments, including within hosting. We are looking forward to the cooperation,” said Henrik Kastbjerg, CEO of IT Relation.

”I am delighted that we have created a strong foundation to deliver top-class service to our customers and to attract and retain the best employees,” said Jens Søgaard, founder of Front-data.

In connection with the transaction, Henrik Kastbjerg will become Group CEO of IT Relation Front-data. Jens Søgaard will become a member of the board, which will be chaired by former CEO of KMD, Lars Monrad-Gylling.

Nykredit has provided debt financing for the transaction. Clearwater International advised IT Relation on the transaction.

Further details concerning the transaction will not be published.

For further information:

Steffen Thomsen, Adelis Equity Partners, +45 40 28 34 09, steffen.thomsen@adelisequity.com

Joel Russ, Adelis Equity Partners, +46 73 543 90 68, joel.russ@adelisequity.com

Henrik Kastbjerg, IT Relation, +45 20 69 67 00, hvk@itrelation.dk

Jens Søgaard, Front-data and DSI-NEXT, +45 27 63 85 00, js@frontdata.dk

About IT Relation

IT Relation was founded in 2003 and within a short period, the company has become one of the leading suppliers of it outsourcing services in Denmark. IT Relation currently has 115 employees, with offices in Herning and outside Copenhagen. For more information, please visit www.itrelation.dk .

About Front-data and DSI-NEXT

Front-data and DSI-NEXT have been part of JS Holding where the two companies have built up leading positions within each of their markets, Front-data within IT Outsourcing/Hosting and DSI-NEXT within Sharepoint, .net development and business intelligence solutions. In combination, Front-data and DSI-NEXT have 95 employees and offices in Århus, Odense and Copenhagen. Please visit www.frontdata.dk and www.dsinext.dk .

About Adelis Equity Partners

Adelis is an active investor and partner in creating value at small and medium sized Nordic companies. Adelis was founded in 2012 with the goal of building the leading lower middle market investment firm in the Nordics. Adelis’ team members have extensive Private Equity experience, have invested in over 50 companies and have been members of the board in more than 50 middle market companies. Our current fund size is approximately €400 million. For more information please visit www.adelisequity.com.

Categories: News

Tags: Information technology

New Portfolio Company: Unacast AS

admin May 18, 2016

Investinor invests in Norwegian tech startup Unacast AS.

Unacast offers the world’s largest network of beacon and proximity data, connecting the physical world to the digital for online retargeting and attribution.

“Like Google indexed the web, Unacast is indexing the physical world”, says Thomas Walle, co-founder and CEO of Unacast.

Unacast will use the newly raised funds to maintain its #1 position, as the maturing proximity industry grows to 400 million sensors in the next years

The number of beacons deployed world wide is forecasted to grow to 400 million beacons in 2020. Unacast already covers 1.4m (30%) of the world’s beacons— making Unacast the largest aggregator in the growing proximity ecosystem.

Unacast connects these data sets to global ad platforms through partnerships with marquee players such as Oracle, MediaMath, Opera, Lotame and Adform to enable digital ad retargeting based on accurate and deterministic physical behavior.

“We are impressed by how fast Unacast has established itself as the dominant integrator in the fast-growing proximity marketing space, connecting operators of physical beacon networks worldwide with the large global advertising platforms and exchanges. Unacast has more than 1.4 million (or 30%) of the world’s beacons in its network, and can offer advertisers a proximity marketing data set that is unprecedented both in scale and depth, says Investment Director Jon Øyvind Eriksen at Investinor”.

INDUSTRY KNOWLEDGE AND LIFTING POWER
Unacast has raised $5 million in a Series A financing round, with Open Ocean Capital, a leading European VC firm for software and data investments, leading the round. Investinor co-lead the round.

In addition to Open Ocean Capital and Investinor, investors in the Series A round include NYC adtech veterans Jonah Goodhart of Right Media (sold to Yahoo) and Michael Barrett, former CEO of Millennial Media, which he took public.

“The Unacast team has a tremendous vision for merchandizing proximity data and serving the data-driven ad industry,” says Michael Barrett, Unacast investor, and previous CEO of Millennial Media.

Thomas Walle continues: “Our goal is to connect all sensors in the world to one platform, and it was important for us to work with investors with industry knowledge and substantial lifting power. This new round enables us to radically accelerate our growth worldwide and scale Unacast’s platform to power the demand from the major global marketing platforms.”

ABOUT UNACAST
With 1.4 million beacons and over 50 partners, Unacast is the world’s largest network of beacon and proximity companies, connecting the physical world to the digital world. Through the Unacast PROX network, Unacast enables a scalable global solution for retailers and brands to use beacon and proximity data for online retargeting and attribution.

Thomas Walle and co-founder Kjartan Slette, were part of the founding team behind TIDAL, the music streaming company sold to Jay Z.

Unacast is the the backend of proximity that aggregates and provides a unified platform for the proximity and advertising industry, solving the fragmentation problem to the benefit of both the supply and demand side. Unacast is the first company to enable a scalable way for retailers and brands to retarget customers online based on accurate behavior in the physical space.

Learn more at unacast.com