Tag Archives: Information technology

Nordic Capital invests in no-code data automation leader Duco

Nordic Capital
  • Investment made in partnership with the CEO and Founder with the aim to accelerate Duco’s growth and expansion

Nordic Capital today announced an agreement to invest in Duco Technology Limited (“Duco”) and acquire a majority shareholding from current investors, CME Ventures, Insight Partners and Eight Roads Ventures. Founder Christian Nentwich will remain as a shareholder and Chief Executive Officer.

Nordic Capital will utilise its experience within the Technology and Payments sector, as well as its broad network and operational resources to accelerate the transformative growth of the business. The data automation market is growing rapidly, and Nordic Capital’s investment will enable the business to further increase its international footprint whilst also supporting product expansion and employee growth.

Nordic Capital invests in no-code data automation leader Duco Image

Duco provides Software as a Service (SaaS) solutions in the cloud to Financial Services, Insurance and FinTech companies dealing with mission critical data management issues. Duco’s mission is to “make managing data easy” by replacing spreadsheets and technology-heavy solutions in areas like data prep, reconciliation, data quality and data management with a user-friendly, machine learning-powered platform.

Headquartered in London, Duco has 140 employees in the UK, US, Singapore and Poland. Duco’s software is used by 14 of the top 30 global banks, asset managers with over $10 trillion in assets, leading payments innovators, exchanges and custodians, and insurers.

“We are very pleased to be partnering with Nordic Capital for the next part of Duco’s journey. Together we will be able to take the business to its next level as they have a strong track record of scaling fast-growing businesses such as Duco. Companies face huge, unsolved problems in the data management and data automation areas. We are passionate about solving these problems in new ways that make people’s work lives more enjoyable and have immediate and substantial agility and cost benefits to our clients. Nordic Capital’s strategic expertise, focus on growth and execution best practice mean that we can accelerate from here and strengthen our strategy with both organic and acquisition growth in the future,” said Christian Nentwich, CEO, Duco, adding “I would also like to thank our outgoing investors and our independent board members, Cris Conde, Kirsten Wolberg and Spencer Lake, for their support and guidance that led us to where we are today.”

“The reconciliation market is growing quickly with strong structural tail winds. Duco brings state-of-the art solutions challenging established legacy point solutions and vastly improve processes. Duco has demonstrated strong leadership and innovation to move technology in Financial Services forward, with its focus on cloud-only delivery and self-service for end users. We are excited about the positioning of the company to respond to major trends that are gaining rapid traction, its great reputation with its clients, and the strength of its technology. Nordic Capital is looking forward to supporting the next phase of Duco’s journey alongside Christian and the management team,” said Emil Anderson, Principal, Nordic Capital Advisors.

Nordic Capital is a leading specialised Technology & Payments investor in Europe with a long and extensive history and experience of investing and supporting sustainable growth in technology software and Financial Service companies. To date, Nordic Capital has deployed more than EUR 4.5 billion of equity across 21 technology companies since 2001 and has significant experience in software as well as payments.

Nordic Capital supports businesses to accelerate growth through expansion into new markets, new product development, improving go-to-market and talent acquisitions, amongst other initiatives. The goal is to use operational experience, capital and business acumen to create strong, sustainable businesses that will thrive in the long term.

The terms of the transaction were not disclosed. Arma Partners served as financial advisors to Duco management and institutional shareholders.

About Duco

Duco, a leading data automation company, is helping businesses to unleash their potential by removing the friction around data. Duco’s cloud-based, no-code platform brings together data quality, reconciliation, data preparation and management, giving firms the tools they need to increase business agility, reduce risk, stay compliant with regulation and dramatically improve efficiency. Over 10,000 users across 30+ countries process billions of data records every week using the platform. Duco is headquartered in London, with offices in New York, Edinburgh, Wroclaw and Singapore. Customers include global banks, investment managers, insurance firms and challenger fintech companies, such as Societe Generale, ING, Man Group and Currencycloud. For more information go to www.du.co

About Nordic Capital

Nordic Capital is a leading private equity investor with a resolute commitment to creating stronger, sustainable businesses through operational improvement and transformative growth. Nordic Capital focuses on selected regions and sectors where it has deep experience and a long history. Focus sectors are Healthcare, Technology & Payments, Financial Services, and selectively, Industrial & Business Services. Key regions are Europe and globally for Healthcare and Technology & Payments investments. Since inception in 1989, Nordic Capital has invested more than EUR 17 billion in close to 120 investments. The most recent funds are Nordic Capital Fund X with EUR 6.1 billion in committed capital and Nordic Capital Evolution Fund with EUR 1.2 billion in committed capital, principally provided by international institutional investors such as pension funds. Nordic Capital Advisors have local offices in Sweden, the UK, the US, Germany, Denmark, Finland and Norway. For further information about Nordic Capital, please visit www.nordiccapital.com.

“Nordic Capital” refers to any, or all, Nordic Capital branded funds and vehicles and associated entities. The general partners and/or delegated portfolio manager of Nordic Capital’s funds and vehicles are advised by several non-discretionary sub-advisory entities, any or all of which are referred to as “Nordic Capital Advisors”.

 

Media contacts

Nordic Capital
Katarina Janerud, Communications Manager
Nordic Capital Advisors
Tel: +46 8 440 50 50
e-mail: katarina.janerud@nordiccapital.com

Duco
Annie Knight / Megan Hill
Wildfire PR
duco@wildfirepr.com
+44 208 408 8000

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Tide raises $100 million in Series C funding led by the Apax Digital Fund

Apax Digital
  • Funding round oversubscribed and resulting in a valuation of over $650 million
  • Funding will support further investments in product and international expansion

 

Tide, the UK’s leading business financial platform,[1] today announced it has received just over $100 million in Series C funding, bringing the company’s total raised to date to $200 million. Tide is now valued at over $650 million post-money, after only four years of operation. The round was led by funds advised by Apax Digital, the growth equity team of Apax Partners. Anthemis, Augmentum, Jigsaw, Local Globe / Latitude, SBI, and SpeedInvest, existing investors, also participated in the round.

Tide has experienced rapid and sustained growth since launching in 2017, with 2020 seeing the business more than double its user base in the UK. With over 350,000 members, over 400,000 business accounts and a proposition ranging from business banking to payments and accounting software, Tide serves around 6% of UK businesses.  Earlier this year, Tide announced that it was expanding into India, with a full launch of the platform planned for 2022.

The new funding puts Tide in a position to continue to develop their business financial platform, grow their market share, as well as expand globally. Tide, in partnership with ClearBank, has also been awarded a total of nearly $120 million in grants from the RBS Alternative Remedies Package.

Oliver Prill, Tide CEO said: “Partnering with Apax Digital validates Tide’s potential to continue our growth trajectory and gain traction in global markets.

“Tide’s growth story to date has been hugely exciting, creating a diverse platform that serves small business owners, as well as generating significant market share. As we embark on taking Tide international, we couldn’t have a better set of investors to support us. We look forward to working with Apax Digital to realise our ambition of becoming a leading global business financial platform.”

Mark Beith, Partner at Apax Digital and Niccolò Ferragamo, Principal at Apax Digital said: “Small businesses are a key pillar of the economy. Yet, for years, they have been underserved by both financial services and software providers. Tide’s cutting-edge platform is empowering SMEs by providing frictionless, easy-to-use software for their financial needs. We are thrilled to partner with Oliver and the Tide team in their mission to simplify the lives of millions of small businesses globally.”

The investment remains subject to FCA approval. Financial Technology Partners (FT Partners) served as the exclusive strategic and financial advisor to Tide on this transaction.

 

 

 

[1] Tide is not a bank, but a business financial platform and the leading digital challenger in business banking services. We believe that a platform approach is the future of business banking, allowing us to offer both financial and admin services to SMEs, saving them time (and money) to allow them to focus on what they love: running their businesses.

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EQT Private Equity to sell Iver, one of the leading Nordic managed IT services providers

eqt
  • EQT Private Equity sells Iver, one of the leading Nordic managed IT services providers with a multi-cloud offering and complete IT outsourcing capabilities, to ICG
  • EQT Private Equity founded Iver through the merger of Candidator and DGC IT Services with the aim to create a platform for consolidation of the highly polarized and fragmented Nordic market, and has since then completed 10 additional strategic add-ons in Sweden and Norway
  • Under EQT Private Equity’s ownership, Iver has more than tripled revenues, while achieving industry low churn and top ranked customer satisfaction

EQT is pleased to announce that the EQT Mid Market Europe fund (“EQT Private Equity”) has agreed to sell Iver Holding AB (“Iver” or the “Company”) to Intermediate Capital Group plc (“ICG”), a UK-based global alternative asset manager.

Headquartered in Stockholm, Sweden, Iver offers full IT-outsourcing capabilities and focuses on high-growth areas such as multi-cloud, digital transformation, cybersecurity and DevOps-services. Iver is the preferred partner for customers with complex IT needs, such as demanding digital infrastructure, security, and regulatory compliance requirements. As part of its multi-cloud offering, Iver partners with major public cloud vendors, such as Amazon and Microsoft, while offering a proprietary European public cloud alternative, compliant to all industry, regulatory, and security requirements. Iver employs more than 1,300 people across its 25 local offices in Sweden and Norway.

Iver was founded in May 2018 through the merger of EQT portfolio companies Candidator and DGC IT Services, which were acquired in February 2018 and May 2018, respectively. The two companies’ strategically complementary characteristics, along with the market fragmentation, brought unique opportunities to build a platform for industry consolidation.

Since then, EQT Private Equity has supported Iver’s ambitious M&A agenda, and in addition to delivering strong organic growth, the Company has completed 10 strategic add-ons in Sweden and Norway. Iver has transformed into an integrated Nordic industry leader with deep capabilities in high growth areas. The Company has more than tripled revenues over the last three years and generated SEK 2.5 billion in 2020. With support from EQT and the board, Iver has increased its focus on ESG and is measuring, analyzing and following-up on its climate impact and CO2 emissions throughout the Company’s entire supply chain. In addition to complying to multiple ISO certifications, the Company’s datacenters are fully powered by renewable energy.

Albert Gustafsson, Partner within EQT Private Equity’s Advisory Team, commented, ”We are grateful to have worked alongside Iver’s entrepreneurial and visionary management team and employees, who have driven the transformation from an industry challenger into a Nordic leader. Iver is uniquely positioned and is supported by strong structural trends, such as the increasing pace of outsourced IT services and growing demand for IT security. We are confident in management’s ability to continue the successful path with Iver’s new owner.”

Carl-Magnus Månsson, CEO of Iver, said, “Modern digital infrastructure is a fundament for accelerating digital innovation and protecting digital values. We are on an exciting journey, the support from the EQT has significantly contributed to helping us transform the business and accelerate growth by making substantial investments. We would like to thank the EQT team, as well as the Iver board, for their support and we look forward to the next phase in our development together with ICG”.

The transaction is subject to customary conditions and approvals and is expected to close in August 2021. The parties have agreed not to disclose the transaction value.

EQT Private Equity was advised by EY (financial and tax) and White & Case (legal).

Contact
EQT Press Office, press@eqtpartners.com, +46 8 506 55 334

About EQT
EQT is a purpose-driven global investment organization with more than EUR 67 billion in assets under management across 26 active funds. EQT funds have portfolio companies in Europe, Asia-Pacific and the Americas with total sales of approximately EUR 29 billion and more than 175,000 employees. EQT works with portfolio companies to achieve sustainable growth, operational excellence and market leadership.

More info: www.eqtgroup.com
Follow EQT on LinkedIn, Twitter, YouTube and Instagram

About Iver
Iver develops, packages, and provides IT services that offer digital competitive advantages and enable innovation. We guide our clients through an ever-changing IT landscape and make it easy for them to adopt new technologies and modern methodologies. Our client base spans every sector, and we provide services for medium- and large-sized companies, organisations, and the public sector. Iver’s registered office is in Stockholm, but we operate throughout the Nordic region, where our agenda is one of continued expansion while remaining, at all times, close to our clients. Iver has a turnover of just over SEK 2.5 billion and approximately 1,300 employees who work at one of our 25 offices in Sweden and Norway. We are big, but we are close to our clients, both geographically and at heart.

More info: www.iver.com

Contact
EQT Press Office, press@eqtpartners.com, +46 8 506 55 334

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Translated receives $25M Investment from Ardian

Ardian

Paris/San Francisco/Rome, June 30, 2021 – Translated, an Italy and US-based company that pioneered the use of artificial intelligence to support professional translators, announces that the world-leading private investment house Ardian has invested $25 million via its Ardian Growth fund, leading a $30 million investment round.

Translated is an end-to-end translation platform that combines its renowned proprietary adaptive neural machine translation software ModernMT with its network of 200 000 engaged linguists. Over the last many years, the company has experienced a consistent 30% organic growth rate year-on-year. Thanks to this human-machine symbiosis, Translated offerings have been constantly improving. Today Translated is able to serve global tech platforms including Airbnb, Google and Uber as well as small and medium-sized businesses.

Leveraging its track-record in scaling-up companies, the Ardian Growth team has joined the founders Isabelle Andrieu and Marco Trombetti to support their ambition in AI and in the Translation world. Through this investment, Ardian will help Translated grow even faster and scale the adoption of its AI-powered platform in Europe and in the US.

Marco Trombetti, co-founder and CEO of Translated, comments: “We believe that allowing everyone to understand and be understood is one of the greatest challenges of humankind. We feel the urgency to solve this problem, because the more people understand each other the easier it will be for humanity to achieve any other great challenge. We decided to partner with Ardian because they share with us the love for diversity, they are capable of accelerating our plans and they have the DNA and means to do so in the long term.”

Isabelle Andrieu, co-founder of Translated, says: “I am thrilled for the milestone reached so far, thanks to our determination, hard work, and wonderful team of people that have given their time and talent to bet on us. We are rich in enthusiasm and desire to pursue this incredible journey”

Laurent Foata, Managing Director and Head of Ardian Growth stated: “Founded and self-financed by inspiring entrepreneurs like Marco and Isabelle, Translated already posts more than 50% of sales in the US market. Such unique achievements chime with Ardian Growth’s investment philosophy and track record in the software landscape.”
Bertrand Schapiro, Director of the Ardian Growth team added: “By pioneering AI and tailoring it for linguists, Translated has shaken up a market historically dominated by only a few players. We’re delighted to support a company that has been able to keep on innovating in AI without losing sight of its overall purpose.”

ABOUT TRANSLATED

Translated has been offering human translation services for the last 20 years in 194 languages and 40 areas of expertise. The company uses a powerful combination of human creativity and machine intelligence to craft consistent quality translations at speed.

Visit the website

ABOUT ARDIAN

Ardian is a world-leading private investment house with assets of US$112bn managed or advised in Europe, the Americas and Asia. The company is majority-owned by its employees. It keeps entrepreneurship at its heart and focuses on delivering excellent investment performance to its global investor base.
Through its commitment to shared outcomes for all stakeholders, Ardian’s activities fuel individual, corporate and economic growth around the world.
Holding close its core values of excellence, loyalty and entrepreneurship, Ardian maintains a truly global network, with more than 700 employees working from fifteen offices across Europe (Frankfurt, Jersey, London, Luxembourg, Madrid, Milan, Paris and Zurich), the Americas (New York, San Francisco and Santiago) and Asia (Beijing, Singapore, Tokyo and Seoul). It manages funds on behalf of more than 1,100 clients through five pillars of investment expertise: Fund of Funds, Direct Funds, Infrastructure, Real Estate and Private Debt.
Follow @Ardian on Twitter

LIST OF PARTICIPANTS

  • Ardian Growth

    • Laurent Foata, Bertrand Schapiro, Olivier Roy
    • Legal advisors : Giovannelli & Associati (Fabrizio Scaparro, Paola Cairoli, Augusto Fracasso), Orrick (Attilio Mazzilli, Flavio Notari, Alessandro Vittoria)
    • Financial advisor: KPMG (Matteo Ennio, Matteo Ghislandi)

Press contact

Translated

CHIARA SANSONI

chiara.sansoni@translated.com +39 338 484 1627

Headland

GREGOR RIEMANN

griemann@headlandconsultancy.com +44 7920 8026 27

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EQT Private Equity to acquire PRO Unlimited, a leader in contingent workforce management

eqt
  • EQT Private Equity to acquire PRO Unlimited, a leading provider of integrated contingent workforce management solutions through its holistic platform which includes managed service program, vendor management software, direct sourcing and data and analytics capabilities
  • PRO Unlimited enables companies to effectively tap into the growing market for high-skilled contingent labor while providing workers more opportunities for flexible employment
  • EQT will support PRO Unlimited’s continued growth and ongoing development of new products to further expand its integrated platform offering

EQT is pleased to announce that the EQT IX fund (“EQT Private Equity”) has agreed to acquire PRO Unlimited Global Solutions Inc. (“PRO Unlimited” or the “Company”), a leader in contingent workforce management solutions, from funds managed by Harvest Partners, LP and its affiliates (“Harvest Partners”) and Investcorp. Following the close of the transaction, EQT Private Equity will be the majority shareholder and the existing PRO Unlimited management team will continue to operate the business.

PRO Unlimited was established in 1991 to assist large companies in managing their contingent workforce to better attract specialist talent seeking a more flexible work solution. Today, the Company’s integrated solutions have grown to incorporate a managed service program, vendor management software, direct sourcing and data and analytics capabilities. The platform handles the significant complexities of running an effective contingent workforce program on behalf of enterprise clients, fulfilling a multitude of tasks including discovering a client’s staffing needs, finding and evaluating candidates, hiring, onboarding, providing payroll and offboarding the contingent workers. PRO Unlimited is differentiated through its focus on high-skilled labor, its staffing agency-neutral approach, and its unique integrated solutions of services, software, and proprietary market data. The Company is headquartered in San Francisco with global capabilities and has approximately 1,400 total employees.

EQT will leverage its extensive experience partnering with technology-enabled services businesses, in-house digital expertise and network of global EQT advisors to support PRO Unlimited in its next phase of development as the Company continues to invest in technology and innovation to expand its integrated platform capabilities.

Kasper Knokgaard, Partner within EQT Private Equity’s Advisory Team, said, “EQT is excited to invest in PRO Unlimited and partner with CEO Kevin Akeroyd and the full PRO Unlimited team as the Company embarks on the next phase of continued growth. PRO Unlimited has been at the forefront of developing a fulsome suite of integrated solutions for companies to manage their contingent workforce through a combination of services, software, and data. We look forward to supporting the continued expansion of the platform to enable more flexible work solutions for the evolving contingent industry.”

Andrew Schoenthal, Partner at Harvest Partners, said, “Through multi-year investments in people, technology and data, PRO Unlimited has developed among the most comprehensive contingent workforce platforms for large and global companies. We are excited to watch Kevin and his team build upon the enormous success that the Company has achieved to date and continue to bring new innovations to the market.” Harvest’s PRO Unlimited investment team is led by Ira Kleinman, Andrew Schoenthal and David Schwartz.

Kevin Akeroyd, CEO of PRO Unlimited, said, “We are proud of what PRO Unlimited has achieved in recent years in collaboration with Harvest Partners and Investcorp. The contingent labor industry is experiencing strong growth, fueled by workers desire for increased autonomy and flexibility. We are delighted to provide the solutions to enable enterprises and the contingent workforce to meet their needs. We look forward to partnering with EQT and leveraging their industry expertise, digital capabilities, and network of advisors.”

The transaction is subject to customary conditions and approvals. It is expected to close in the second half of 2021.

EQT Private Equity was advised by BofA Securities, Sidley Austin LLP, McKinsey & Company and Alvarez & Marsal.

PRO Unlimited, Harvest Partners and Investcorp were advised by William Blair and White & Case.

With this transaction, EQT IX is expected to be 50-55 percent invested (including closed and/or signed investments, announced public offers, if applicable, and less any expected syndication) based on its target fund size, and subject to customary regulatory approvals.

About EQT
EQT is a purpose-driven global investment organization with more than EUR 67 billion in assets under management across 26 active funds. EQT funds have portfolio companies in Europe, Asia-Pacific and the Americas with total sales of approximately EUR 29 billion and more than 175,000 employees. EQT works with portfolio companies to achieve sustainable growth, operational excellence and market leadership.

More info: www.eqtgroup.com
Follow EQT on LinkedIn, Twitter, YouTube and Instagram

About PRO Unlimited
Servicing hundreds of the world’s most recognizable brands, PRO Unlimited offers modern workforce management and a partner ecosystem supported by data, software, intelligence, and services to meet flexible workforce needs. PRO’s Modern Workforce Management Platform can adapt quickly to regional or industry economic shifts, and provides the speed, scale, flexibility, transparency, and expertise to serve as the holistic platform for the modern workforce. Headquartered in San Francisco, PRO has helped global brands and organizations achieve operational and financial success for more than 30 years.

More info: www.prounlimited.com

About Harvest Partners, LP
Founded in 1981, Harvest Partners, LP is an established New York-based private equity investment firm that focuses on investments in middle-market companies in the business services & industrial services, consumer, healthcare, industrials and software industries. Harvest’s control strategy leverages the firm’s 40 years of experience in financing organic and acquisition-oriented growth.

More info: www.harvestpartners.com.

Contact
US inquiries:
Stephanie Greengarten,
+1 646 687 6810,
stephanie.greengarten@eqtpartners.com

International inquiries:
EQT Press Office,
​​​​​​​press@eqtpartners.com
+46 8 506 55 334

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Aircall, now valued above $1bn, raises $120M in Series D funding, led by Goldman Sachs Asset Management

DTCP

Funding will advance Aircall’s market leadership in Cloud Communications industry

NEW YORK, NY, June 23rd, 2021

  • Launched in 2014 in France, Aircall is a cloud-based phone system and call center software that integrates seamlessly with popular CRM and helpdesk tools, such as Salesforce, Hubspot, etc.
  • Including its Series D, Aircall has now raised more than $226 million.
  • This new financing will allow Aircall to fulfill its mission of trailblazing a new era for cloud communications.

Aircall, a cloud-based voice platform helping companies across the globe manage millions of customer support and sales calls every day, today announced it has raised $120 million in a series D funding round, bringing the company’s total valuation to more than $1 billion. The funding round was led by the Growth Equity business within Goldman Sachs Asset Management, and joined by most of Aircall’s current investors (DTCP, eFounders, Draper Esprit, Adam Street Partners, NextWorldCap, Gaia), showing their renewed trust in the company’s vision.

Aircall was founded in 2014 with the belief that traditional business phone systems were hard to manage, siloed, and required heavy implementation costs and time. In an increasingly virtual world, businesses were lacking an easy-to-use solution that could integrate with other critical business applications, and support the communications needs of a dispersed and flexible workforce.

Over the past year, remote workforces accelerated digital transformation for companies of all sizes and, at the same time, their customers increased their expectations around personalized and convenient service. Aircall helps businesses meet those objectives by integrating its cloud-based solution into leading business softwares like Salesforce, Hubspot, Zendesk, Slack, Intercom and many others. This allows businesses to streamline workflows, providing more efficiency for their teams with better visibility, data and insights into their customers’ needs and their teams’ performances. Ultimately, the solution allows personalized experiences for their customers. Aircall was built to empower any professional to have richer conversations, and to allow the phone channel to be accessible, transparent, and collaborative.

Christian Resch, Managing Director at Goldman Sachs, said: “The past 12 months have been a catalyst for Aircall’s cloud based SaaS communication solution. In a hybrid work environment, users are looking to Aircall to provide an easy to use experience that is highly integrated into their workflows, thereby making the most out of every customer interaction. We are very excited to partner with Aircall, as the company looks to accelerate its growth and expand globally.”

Kirk Lepke, Executive Director at Goldman Sachs, added: “We have been following Aircall’s journey for some time and are delighted to be partnering with Olivier and the Aircall team to lead the Series D. The company has tremendous momentum within a huge category and a differentiated product strategy that will sustain significant growth for many years to come.”

Despite the challenges this past year has brought, Aircall achieved record-breaking growth across its business. The company saw more than 65 percent total customer growth year over year, and now has more than 8,500 customers worldwide. Aircall’s development relies strongly on internationalization, with more than a third of revenue generated in the United States. With offices in New York, Paris, Sydney and Madrid, Aircall recently passed the 450 employee mark and plans to recruit more than 260 new employees by the end of the year.

With this new funding round, Aircall will invest in the following:

  • Enrich its app ecosystem, specifically with new integrations covering all use cases, from e-commerce to financial services, Sales, Support, etc.
  • Expand globally, with new European offices in London and Berlin, and deeper investments in North America and APAC. Aircall plans to recruit more customer-facing teams to come closer to the customer needs, and to form strong partnerships, including with channels and resellers.
  • Partner with major telecommunications companies to bring its technology to every professional around the world, by leveraging local networks expertise.
  • Improve technology with new AI capabilities, additional productivity features for call centers: transcription & speech analytics for greater depth of productivity features for sales and support. Aircall will also enhance infrastructure capacities by providing additional points of presence to support local usage, while continuing to deliver additional capacity at scale, and provide a global standard of high quality for voice.

“Since the beginning of Aircall, we’ve helped thousands of companies to enrich their customer experience through voice channels, with more empathy than ever in the past year. We also witnessed an increasing demand for visibility and data about teams and performances.“ said Olivier Pailhes, co-founder and CEO of Aircall. “Now that hybrid, on-site or remote teams are likely here to stay, we’ll continue to work to achieve our vision, and empower every professional to have richer conversations. With that in mind, the investment by Goldman Sachs, and the renewed trust of our current investors validates this vision.”

###

About Aircall

Aircall is the phone system for modern business. An entirely cloud-based voice platform that integrates seamlessly with popular productivity and helpdesk tools. Aircall was built to make phone support as easy to manage – accessible, transparent, and collaborative.

Aircall believes that voice is the most powerful way to communicate with customers, prospects, candidates, and colleagues. It is designed to enable delightful moments of human connection. Aircall was founded in 2014 and has raised over $226 million in funding. With offices in New York, Paris, Sydney, and Madrid, the company currently has over 450+ employees.

https://aircall.io/

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Element Logic announces partnership with Castik Capital

Castik Capital

Funds managed by Castik Capital S.à r.l. (“Castik”) have entered into an agreement to acquire a majority stake in Element Logic, in partnership with its co-founder and CEO Dag-Adler Blakseth, co-founder Kjell Blakseth and the broader management team. Castik will jointly own the company alongside Element Logic’s founders, management team and employees.

Element Logic, headquartered in Kløfta, Norway, is a specialized integrator for automated warehouse solutions centred around the AutoStore® system. Founded in 1985, the company now employs 170 specialists across Europe who design, implement, deliver and service a wide range of automated and static warehouse automation solutions for customers in a range of industries across Europe, complemented by proprietary software and technology. Not only did Element Logic deliver the world’s first ten AutoStore® installations, but they have also implemented more AutoStore® solutions in 2020 than any other competitor worldwide. After delivering organic revenue growth at a c. 50% CAGR since 2014, Element Logic today has a leading market position in the Nordics and across Europe.

Element Logic’s focus on being a pure-play AutoStore® system provider has made it a trusted one-stop shop for warehouse automation solutions in Europe, underpinned by expertise and technology. Castik aims to further support Element Logic with its rapid organic expansion across Europe and to explore further avenues to expand its service and software capabilities, partly through selective M&A.

“We are thrilled to have Castik on board as our partner of choice with a great fit to Element Logic. Together we plan to continue our growth journey, while we retain the Element Way and the company’s unique culture, as Element Logic truly is a people business. There are an incredible number of exciting opportunities ahead of us that open up further when we add Castik’s support together with our competence, experience and ambitions”, says Dag-Adler Blakseth, co-founder and CEO of Element Logic.

“We are very excited to have the opportunity to partner with Dag-Adler Blakseth and the entire Element Logic team, and to support the company in its continued growth story. The company has grown tremendously over the last years in a market for warehouse automation that is still in its infancy,” Michael Phillips, Partner at Castik Capital, says.

Element Logic and the sellers were advised by Carnegie, CLP, Bain and PwC. Castik was advised by Skadden, Arntzen de Besche, Kearney, PwC and GCA Altium. Ares provided financing for Castik.

About Element Logic

For over 30 years Element Logic has been optimizing warehouse performance. In 2020, we installed more AutoStore® solutions than any other company in the world and we continue to create smart solutions to help warehouses deal with their customer’s increasing demand for fast deliveries. Our robotic solutions, software and consulting help businesses improve their value chains and to be more profitable. We optimize warehouses of all sizes in a wide range of industries including electronic components, parts distribution, consumer electronics, 3PL, pharmaceuticals, apparel, sports equipment, and more.

As the original AutoStore® partner, we have a wealth of experience designing, delivering, and installing tailormade solutions that improve customers workflow.

Element Logic has more than 170 employees in Europe and had a turnover of €100 million in 2020. Our headquarter is in Norway, with subsidiaries all over Europe.

For more information visit www.elementlogic.net.

About Castik Capital

Castik Capital S.à r.l (“Castik”) manages investments in private equity. Castik is a European multi-strategy investment manager, acquiring significant ownership positions in European private and public companies, where long-term value can be generated through active partnerships with founders and management teams. Founded in 2014, Castik is based in Luxembourg and focuses on identifying and developing investment opportunities across Europe. The advisor to Castik is Castik Capital Partners GmbH, based in Munich. Investments are made by the Luxembourg-based EPIC II Fund.

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AI-powered transaction monitoring start-up Sentinels raises €5.7 million seed round led by INKEF Capital

Inkef Capital

Dutch artificial intelligence company Sentinels has raised £4.9 million (€5.7 million) in a seed funding round, led by INKEF Capital, complemented by strategic angel investors and industry leaders – including several members of the early Adyen team. The startup has now raised a total of £7.3m (€8.4m) to date.

Sentinels protects fintechs with an AI-powered transaction monitoring system, reducing repetitive tasks and workload and is relied upon by the likes of online payments unicorn Mollie. It was created in response to rising pressure from regulators on fintechs and traditional financial institutions to crack down on money laundering and other illegal activity passing through their platforms.
Sentinels will use this funding to further build out the product and expand its operations into the UK and beyond Europe, to North America, LatAm and APAC. The funding round also included investment from several members of the early Adyen team including its former EVP sales Thijn Lamers and Head of Growth Maikel Lobbezoo.

Dutch-based Sentinels was launched 18 months ago by Joost van Houten and is a spin-out from Slimmer AI, a European B2B AI venture studio which builds businesses that use AI to disrupt markets. As well as Mollie, it already counts Terrapay, Online Payment Platform, Ginger Payments and ManoBank among its roster of clients.

Unlike legacy compliance technology, Sentinels starts by analysing internal data siloes and augmenting them with external sources – such as adverse media, sanctions lists and merchant websites – to create a rich context. Expert logic, machine learning models and graph networks then sieve out only on the truly suspicious cases. A smart workflow then helps to automate repetitive tasks and make better decisions. The entire compliance process is simplified to one API.
Joost van Houten, Founder and CEO of Sentinels, commented: “In less than five years, we’ve seen countless companies enter the compliance space and a 10x increase in the number of compliance staff – and yet money laundering still remains a significant challenge for financial institutions.

“The big issue is that legacy technology is increasingly out-of-step with the needs of fintechs and other fast-growing institutions. Excessive reports and an unacceptably high number of false alarms puts undue resourcing pressure on companies that should be targeting growth, instead of being waylaid by time-consuming compliance admin.

“Our aim is to help financial institutions keep track of who their customers really are and how they behave – not only to understand risks, but also to serve them better. With this funding round, we’re excited to leverage the knowledge, network and expertise from INKEF, several key members of Adyen’s original founding team and select other fintech leaders.”

Kyang Yung, INKEF, added: “We were attracted to the impressive early traction; particularly Sentinels’ ability to convert small-to-large fintechs, as well as more traditional banks, who recognise the imperative to change. Coming from the payments industry myself, I see a huge market opportunity for Sentinels.”

About Sentinels: Sentinels is an intelligent transaction monitoring solution dedicated to data-driven compliance for the financial industry. With a team of more than 20 in-house engineers, Sentinels’ pragmatic-AI approach has a proven track record in improving compliance outcomes. Its secure cloud-based offering ensures a high level of customer trust and meets constantly changing regulatory requirements. For more information visit: Sentinels.ai

Investors’ overview

INKEF Capital is a venture capital firm based in Amsterdam, backing promising early stage companies in Europe. INKEF takes pride in being a patient, long-term investor with the ability to support companies through several rounds of funding. From the early stages of being a technology or life science venture, INKEF Capital supports entrepreneurs building their ideas into successful international businesses INKEF has also invested in GitLab, Remote and Silverflow, among others. For more information: INKEF.com

Strategic angel investors: Thijn Lamers – former EVP Global Sales of Adyen; Maikel Lobbezoo – former Head of Growth at Adyen; and several other fintech angels.

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Pangiam Acquires Trueface, a Leader in Artificial Intelligence, Computer Vision and Facial Recognition

Ae Industrial Partners

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Pangiam Acquires Trueface, a Leader in Artificial Intelligence, Computer Vision and Facial Recognition

TYSONS CORNER, Va., June 2, 2021 – Pangiam, a technology-based security and travel services provider, announced today that it has acquired Trueface, a U.S.-based leader in computer vision focused on facial recognition, weapon detection and age verification technologies. Terms of the transaction were not disclosed.
This is the second acquisition completed by Pangiam since being formed by AE Industrial Partners, LP (“AEI”) through the combination of Linkware, LLC and PRE, LLC in October 2020. In March, Pangiam acquired veriScan, an integrated biometric facial recognition system for airports and airlines, from the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority.

Trueface, founded in 2013 by Shaun Moore and Nezare Chafni, provides industry leading computer vision solutions to customers in a wide range of industries. The company’s facial recognition technology recently achieved a top three ranking among western vendors in the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) 1:N Face Recognition Vendor Test.

Trueface applies its patent-protected solutions to solve issues such as frictionless access control, contactless elevated temperature checks, social distancing and PPE compliance monitoring. The company has a robust sales pipeline and has entrenched positions with clients in over 13 countries.

The acquisition of Trueface will aid Pangiam in achieving its mission to provide a safer, faster, and more personalized travel experience for all. Trueface will add an additional capability to Pangiam’s existing technologies, creating a comprehensive and seamless solution to satisfy the needs of both federal and commercial enterprises. Messrs. Moore and Chafni will serve in key leadership positions within Pangiam and continue to lead the growth of Trueface.

“We are excited to welcome Trueface to the Pangiam family. Shaun and Nezare are pioneering thought leaders whose advances in computer vision have the potential to drive innovation in identity management, data labeling and biometrics,” said Pangiam CEO Kevin McAleenan.

“We are thrilled to join the talented team at Pangiam who share our core values to provide equitable benefit to all through computer vision technology. The complimentary technologies that Pangiam has assembled will enable the Trueface team to execute more quickly and fully realize the opportunity of its technologies like facial recognition,” said Mr. Moore, CEO of Trueface.

“Adding Trueface’s technology solutions to Pangiam’s offerings comes at a perfect time, as travel is poised to continue to rebound and passengers want reassurances that the highest health and safety protocols are being followed,” said Kirk Konert, a Partner at AEI. “AEI is pleased to back Pangiam’s second acquisition this year as we continue to support the company’s momentum.”

About Pangiam
Pangiam is a leading provider of customized identity management, biometrics and advanced analytics software and consulting solutions to federal government and commercial customers. As a team of customs and security professionals with decades of collective experience at senior levels of the U.S. Government, Pangiam has an intimate understanding of the security, facilitation, and disaster response challenges facing governments and industry leaders around the world. Pangiam aims to revolutionize the future of operations, security, and safety at airports, seaports, and land border crossings through the use of emerging technologies. To learn more, please visit
https://pangiam.com.

About Trueface
Trueface is a computer vision company that transforms video and imagery into intelligent, actionable data, empowering users to enhance their operating capacity and reduce risks associated with identity. Industries deploying their advanced facial recognition technology in a responsible way include retail, hospitality, healthcare, gaming and financial services. For more information on Trueface, please visit trueface.ai.

About AE Industrial Partners
AE Industrial Partners is a private equity firm specializing in Aerospace, Defense & Government Services, Space, Power Generation, and Specialty Industrial markets. AE Industrial Partners invests in market-leading companies that can benefit from its deep industry knowledge, operating experience, and relationships throughout its target markets. AE Industrial Partners is a signatory to the United Nations Principles for Responsible Investing. Learn more at www.aeroequity.com.

MEDIA CONTACTS:

For Pangiam:
Andrew Meehan
(914) 907-9679
media@pangiam.com

For AE Industrial Partners:
Lambert & Co.
Jennifer Hurson
(845) 507-0571
jhurson@lambert.com

Or

Caroline Luz
203-656-2829
cluz@lambert.com
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Neo4j Announces $325 Million Series F Investment, the Largest in Database History

DTCP

Eurazeo Leads Series F Round, Raising the Company’s Valuation to Over $2 Billion

SAN MATEO, Calif. – June 17, 2021 – Neo4jⓇ, the leader in graph technology, announced today a Series F funding round as part of a $325 million investment led by Eurazeo (RF:PA) with participation from GV (formerly Google Ventures). Today’s transaction represents the largest investment in a private database company and raises Neo4j’s valuation to over $2 billion.

Existing investors One Peak (an investor since 2018), Creandum (an investor since 2014), and Greenbridge Partners (an investor since 2016), as well as new investors DTCP and Lightrock, also participated.

Emil Eifrem, Neo4j’s CEO and Co-Founder, characterized the news as an inflection point in the broader database market and welcomed investment partners Eurazeo, GV, DTCP, and Lightrock.

“Databases constitute the largest single market in enterprise software, with growth centered in new generations of databases that address today’s data challenges in unprecedented ways,” said Eifrem. “This is a magical time in databases, presenting an opportunity for a handful of generational companies to emerge as leaders in the broader landscape. Neo4j is one of these companies, and today’s record-breaking transaction in the database space demonstrates that our new and existing investors share this belief.”

According to Gartner, “By 2025, graph technologies will be used in 80% of data and analytics innovations, up from 10% in 2021, facilitating rapid decision making across the enterprise.” Source: Gartner, Top Trends in Data and Analytics for 2021, Rita Sallam et al., 16 Feb 2021.

Trusted by more than 800 enterprise customers, including Adobe, AstraZeneca, eBay,  Levi Strauss & Co., UBS, Volvo Cars, and Walmart, Neo4j is the world’s most widely deployed graph database.

Used by more than 75% of the Fortune 100, Neo4j’s graph data platform enables mission-critical workloads for the world’s largest connected data applications.

Neo4j’s market leadership is accelerating along several axes. Today’s funding fuels the company’s product innovation to provide graph technology that far exceeds the most demanding customer requirements across data science, machine learning, cloud deployment, and real-time performance.

The company plans to use the investment to accelerate along three primary dimensions:

  • Cloud portfolio – Delivering a portfolio of multi-cloud services that can serve individual developers all the way through to the largest global enterprises, offering unmatched flexibility, agility, and performance at any scale.
  • Graph data science – Powering a new era of intelligent applications with enhanced machine learning models to unlock otherwise unattainable predictions based on relationships.
  • Market reach – Expanding Neo4j’s global footprint, and growing the company’s ecosystem of complementary technologies and expert service providers, in order to deliver complete solutions and accelerate customer success.

Nathalie Kornhoff-Brüls is a Managing Director in the growth team of Eurazeo and has been appointed to the Neo4j Board of Directors.

“It is clear that the world is becoming increasingly interconnected, from multi-level global supply chains to ubiquitous automation of processes. It is also clear that businesses who are unable to digitize, analyze, and visualize this interconnectedness will be left behind,” said Kornhoff-Brüls. “We chose to invest in Neo4j because it is shaping the future of how data and analytics will need to be implemented in the enterprise and beyond. The company’s technology leadership, global developer community, and world-class customer base – combined with an ever-expanding global ecosystem – uniquely position Neo4j to continue to define and lead the graph database category. We couldn’t be prouder to have been chosen as a partner by Emil and his team, and look forward to leveraging Eurazeo’s global platform for the company’s journey ahead.”

General Partners Erik Nordlander and Tom Hulme welcomed Neo4j to the GV portfolio, in a blog post titled Neo4j: A Quest to Make Better Sense of Data.

“Tom Hulme and I are excited to welcome the team to the portfolio, joining other database companies that are building the future of the enterprise. Neo4j has been steadfast in its vision, and I admire Emil’s grit and tireless dedication over the years to build and evangelize graph databases,” said Erik Nordlander, General Partner at GV.

As the graph category creator, Neo4j has built a global community of hundreds and thousands of highly skilled application developers and data scientists around its technology ecosystem. These practitioners are building wide-ranging applications, unable to be served by relational or other NoSQL databases, which require digitizing connections in data at scale. Examples include determining the price of an airline ticket in real time, exposing complex criminal networks responsible for cyber attacks, and money laundering activity.
Neo4j is recognized as a Leader in The Forrester Wave™: Graph Data Platforms, Q4 2020. Of the 12 graph data platform providers cited, Neo4j achieved the highest scores in the current offering and strategy categories.

 

For more information about what Neo4j’s funding announcement means to its customers, the developer community, and the database industry, view Emil Eifrem’s blog post, Neo4j Raises the Largest Funding Round in Database History.

 

About Neo4j

Neo4j is the leader in graph database technology. As the world’s most widely deployed graph database, we help global brands – including Comcast, NASA, UBS, and Volvo Cars – to reveal and predict how people, processes, and systems are interrelated. Using this relationships-first approach, applications built with Neo4j tackle connected data challenges such as analytics and artificial intelligence, fraud detection, real-time recommendations, and knowledge graphs. Find out more at neo4j.com.

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