More than 350,000 workers around the world use iObeya as global demand for enterprise-grade visual collaboration software explodes

July 23, 2020 – MASSY, France – iObeya, a leading provider of Enterprise Visual Management software, today announced that it has raised $17 million in a second round of funding from Red River West with participation from Atlantic Bridge Capital and Fortino Capital Partners, bringing the total raised to date to $20 million. In addition to advancing the development of its platform, the new financing will accelerate the company’s expansion into the United States, including the opening of a Seattle headquarters led by Cisco veteran Tim McCracken. The company also announced that it has recruited Rick Tywoniak, an expert in the field of visual collaboration, as Vice President of Marketing.

While iObeya was widely used prior to the pandemic — hundreds of thousands of workers already use iObeya every day — the rapid and unprecedented shift to remote work has fueled skyrocketing demand for its platform, which is up by more than 400% since January. iObeya is ideal for large organizations with distributed teams; those that have complex R&D, engineering, and manufacturing processes; and those that utilize Lean and Agile methods. A growing number of forward-thinking multinational companies depend on iObeya for their Visual Management and their visual collaboration including: Airbus, Thales, Volvo, Philips, Cartier, Axa, Eli Lilly and Company, Western Digital, Kimberly-Clark,  Danaher, Sanofi, and many more.

“A decade or more ago, digital whiteboarding tools ushered in an era of visual collaboration. Today, iObeya represents a new vanguard that is poised to define the era of Visual Management,” said Luc-Emmanuel Barreau, Partner at Red River West. “iObeya’s momentum and ‘stickiness’ among leading global brands proves that there is significant — and growing — demand for enterprise-grade visual collaboration solutions that are designed on Lean and Agile principles, that fuel innovation and drive business performance. iObeya’s team has a proven track record and we’re excited to lead this investment as the company expands its global footprint, notably in the U.S.”

Enterprise Visual Management – The Next Generation of Visual Collaboration for Lean and Agile Companies

Companies around the world are increasingly deploying Lean and Agile management methodologies in order to improve overall business performance and competitiveness. Visual Management is a core component of these transformative methodologies, yet many companies find it difficult to scale enterprise-wide: valuable knowledge ends up on Post-It notes, whiteboards, or other information silos such that it cannot be securely stored or shared. Existing visual collaboration and digital whiteboarding tools are limited in enterprise functionality and are ineffective at reproducing a company’s unique Lean rituals and Agile ceremonies at scale, creating disconnectedness across teams and reducing their ability to manage projects effectively. As a result, many companies must either develop their own software in-house, which is both time-consuming and costly, or attempt to piece together multiple tools.

“Today’s workers know that advancing a unified vision and achieving common goals through teamwork — especially when working remotely — is essential. That’s why companies are striving to provide their employees with a human-centric, virtual environment in which they can innovate, grow, and contribute to the success of the business,” said Cyril Daloz, co-founder and CEO of iObeya. “iObeya is an enterprise platform that empowers teams to create secure, configurable virtual rooms to support all their Visual Management practices. Users can share information and ideas, collaborate with colleagues in real time, and track the progress of projects according to Lean and Agile principles. Our solution is particularly well-positioned to lead in these unprecedented times. We look forward to using this new investment to deliver a more visual and collaborative management approach, centered on human values, to large organizations as we expand our business in the U.S. and around the world.”

As the leader in Visual Management for Lean and Agile companies, iObeya is at the heart of business processes and helps businesses achieve operational excellence. iObeya accelerates the deployment of Lean and Agile across large organizations by digitizing all key Visual Management practices: industrial product lifecycle management, manufacturing operational excellence, software design and development, continuous improvement of business performance, and much more.

With the iObeya platform, enterprise users can:

• Go beyond the limitations of paper and boost innovation with real-time, collaborative, visual workspaces — Each iObeya room, designed to be a digital reproduction of a real-world “obeya” room, is a virtual workspace dedicated to visual collaboration, accommodating up to 200 users and 40 whiteboards. Users and teams enjoy an immersive, co-creation experience with a wide range of fully-configurable digital tools to replicate and enhance meetings that are traditionally conducted with paper, Post-It notes, and whiteboards.
• Incorporate Lean and Agile principles into business processes — Seamless integrations with Atlassian Jira and Microsoft Azure DevOps help companies unlock the full potential of Application LifeCycle Management (ALM) and strengthen Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe®) ceremonies. iObeya is integrated with Microsoft Office 365, enabling users to directly access their visual workspace from Microsoft Teams. iObeya also contributes to the digital transformation and operational excellence of factories by providing performance management (SQCDP) for Industry 4.0 applications.
• Increase participation, transparency, and accountability across working groups — With iObeya, teams have a single online location for tracking ideas, progress, and results so that projects stay on track and nothing falls through the cracks. Intuitive activity cards enable users to sort tasks in a variety of ways: by project, deadline, owner, and other configurable views.
• Leverage cloud-based SaaS or deploy onsite for total data governance — iObeya offers companies the choice to use its secure SaaS service or easily deploy an on-premise version.
• Ensure the security of corporate data — iObeya is the only Visual Management software to be ISO/IEC 27001:2013 certified by BSI, the leading international security standards organization. This certification confirms that iObeya meets the most stringent level of IT governance by large enterprises.

“Today, more than 10,000 daily users benefit from a single enterprise platform for their Visual Management practices. iObeya allows our teams to be perfectly aligned and to avoid waste all the while benefiting from a significant increase in efficiency for the organization on a global scale: less travel, fewer emails, and above all, more time for product development,” said Philippe Colombo, Head of Knowledge Management and Visual Management at Volvo. iObeya is a must for any global company going through a Lean transformation”.

About iObeya

Founded in 2011, iObeya is the enterprise platform dedicated to all Visual Management and collaboration practices. iObeya enables distributed teams to perform their rituals and ceremonies as though face-to-face and in a secure virtual environment, while upholding the principles of Lean and Agile methodologies. More than 350,000 workers around the world use iObeya daily to improve their company’s performance as part of their major strategic Lean, Agile, digital and cultural transformations. iObeya is backed by leading venture capital firms including Red River West, Atlantic Bridge Capital, and Fortino Capital Partners. For more information, please visit iobeya.com.

About Red River West

Red River West is a unique cross-border VC firm which promotes the international take-off of outstanding EU Tech companies by providing significant financial firepower and game changing hands-on support in EU & the US. RRW focuses on highly disruptive growth-stage companies with investment tickets of €5 million to €30 million. RRW was initiated in 2017 by Artemis – the Pinault family holding company – and Alfred Vericel – the co-founder of Purch, a digital media group leader in the U.S.

About Fortino Capital Partners

Fortino Capital Partners is a European enterprise software investor, managing a €240 million growth private equity fund and two venture capital funds for earlier stage software opportunities. The firm has offices in Antwerp and Amsterdam. Fortino Capital’s investment portfolio includes MobileXpense, Efficy CRM, Odin Groep, Tenzinger, Maxxton, LetsBuild, Teamleader, among others. For more information, please visit
www.fortinocapital.com.

About Atlantic Bridge Capital

Atlantic Bridge Capital is a Global Growth Technology Investment Firm with over €950 million of assets under management across seven Funds, investing in Deep Tech growth stage technology companies in Europe and the U.S. The firm has offices and investment teams based in Palo Alto, London, Dublin, Munich, and Paris.

Dedalus strengthens its leading position in the healthcare IT sector at European and global level by operating in 40 countries worldwide

• EQT VII to sell IFS, the leading global enterprise software provider that enables businesses to digitalize their core operations, to successor funds and TA Associates for a transaction value in excess of EUR 3 billion

• During EQT VII’s ownership, IFS has grown into the global leader within Field Service Management software by focused investments into the product and the organization as well as targeted add-on acquisitions
• Under EQT VII’s tenure, IFS’ revenues have doubled to SEK 7.3 billion, EBITDA has quadrupled, and the employee base has increased by 50 percent

The EQT VII fund (“EQT VII”) today announced that it has agreed to sell IFS AB (“IFS” or “the Company”) to the successor funds EQT VIII and EQT IX, and global growth private equity firm, TA Associates, which becomes a minority partner at a transaction value in excess of EUR 3 billion.

Founded in 1983, IFS is the leading provider of Field Service Management (FSM) software and is recognized for its vertically-aligned Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) and Enterprise Asset Management (EAM) software solutions. IFS is a key enabler for digitalizing core operations while contributing to more efficient use of resources and assets across its customers’ value chain. The Company serves more than 10,000 customers globally, reaching more than one million users.

Together with the management team and the board of directors, EQT VII has supported IFS on an accelerated growth journey, resulting in a doubling of revenues to SEK 7.3 billion, a quadrupling of EBITDA and a 50 percent increase of the employee base over the holding period. With EQT VII’s support, IFS has also made multiple add-on acquisitions (including WorkWave and Astea) which, combined with the organic growth and investment in the Company’s product offering, has strengthened IFS’ leading position within FSM.

Robert Maclean, Partner at EQT Partners, said: “When EQT VII acquired IFS in 2015, it was a well-performing business supported by strong macro trends with significant opportunities to further accelerate growth. Today, IFS is trailblazing the enterprise software space and we have been incredibly impressed by IFS’ ability to consistently outperform their fast-growing market.”

Per Franzén, Partner at EQT Partners and Co-Head of Private Equity, added: “We are impressed by how well IFS has developed over the past few years. Today, IFS is a true leader in its verticals, and IFS’ solutions are globally recognized for helping businesses stay ahead of the curve when it comes to digitalization. IFS is another great example of EQT future proofing businesses and the management team, led by CEO Darren Roos, has done an excellent job strengthening IFS’ position across its core verticals transforming the organization into a global enterprise software company.”

Darren Roos, CEO of IFS, said: “The IFS and EQT VII partnership has been excellent. EQT’s expertise within software and digitalization has played a critical role in supporting IFS on our growth journey. We look forward to continuing our development journey together with EQT and TA Associates.”

Over the years, IFS has made significant investments into its development hubs in Sri Lanka where it is now the country’s second largest technology employer. In 2019, IFS also established the IFS Foundation with the aim of supporting local communities and breaking the poverty cycle in Sri Lanka.

IFS’ sister-company Acumatica will not be sold as part of the transaction and will remain an EQT VII investment.

Goldman Sachs and Jefferies acted as financial advisors to EQT VII, and Arma Partners acted as financial advisor to TA Associates.

Contact
Robert Maclean, Partner at EQT Partners and Investment Advisor to EQT VII, +44 7384 25 9995
EQT Press Office, press@eqtpartners.com, +46 8 506 55 334

About EQT
EQT is a differentiated global investment organization with more than EUR 62 billion in raised capital and around EUR 40 billion in assets under management across 19 active funds. EQT funds have portfolio companies in Europe, Asia-Pacific and North America with total sales of more than EUR 27 billion and approximately 159,000 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 IFS
IFS develops and delivers enterprise software for customers around the world who manufacture and distribute goods, build and maintain assets, and manage service-focused operations. The industry expertise of IFS’ people and solutions, has made IFS a recognized leader and the most recommended supplier in IFS’ core verticals. The IFS team of 4,000 employees and a growing ecosystem of partners support more than 10,000 customers around the world challenge the status quo and realize their competitive advantage.

More info: www.ifs.com

About TA Associates
TA Associates is a leading global growth private equity firm. Focused on targeted sectors within five industries – technology, healthcare, financial services, consumer and business services – TA invests in profitable, growing companies with opportunities for sustained growth, and has invested in more than 500 companies around the world. Investing as either a majority or minority investor, TA employs a long-term approach, utilizing its strategic resources to help management teams build lasting value in high quality growth companies. TA has raised $33.5 billion in capital since its founding in 1968 and is committing to new investments at the pace of over $2 billion per year. The firm’s more than 85 investment professionals are based in Boston, Menlo Park, London, Mumbai and Hong Kong.

More info: www.ta.com

14 July 2020

Increasing adoption of pricing software has fueled Pricefx’s growth as companies look for ways to increase revenue and profit during the global economic slowdown and beyond

CHICAGO, MUNICH and PRAGUE – July 14, 2020: Pricefx, the global leader in cloud-native pricing software, today announced it has received $65 million in Series C funding, bringing the company’s total raised to date to $130 million. The round was led by funds advised by Apax Digital, the growth equity team of Apax Partners, with participation from existing investor Digital⁺ Partners. Pricefx will use the new funding to expand and solidify its global market leadership position as the only true SaaS platform in the pricing industry, accelerate product innovation, extend its partner ecosystem, and evaluate strategic acquisitions.

SaaS solutions have faced increased demand since pandemic measures forced companies to rapidly and radically address digital transformation initiatives. Pricing software, in particular, has seen a tremendous surge in interest owing to the strong return on investment, even in downturns. As a result, Pricefx has signed more than a dozen new customer deals since March of this year.

“Pricing is being recognized as a critical competency for global enterprises and Pricefx is leading the way for a SaaS-based approach,” said Marcin Cichon, CEO and co-founder of Pricefx. “This investment from Apax confirms Pricefx’s resilience, ability to grow its customer base, and innovate – even during challenging times. This investment will further power our global commercial strategy and aggressive product innovation, by attracting critical talent, expanding our growing ecosystem of partners, and enabling further potential strategic acquisitions – all in pursuit of our mission to bring pricing solutions to as many companies as we can, as simply and effectively as possible.”

Pricefx provides a suite of cloud-based pricing software tools – from Price Optimization, Management (PO&M) to Configure-Price-Quote (CPQ) – for B2B and B2C enterprises of all sizes. Additionally, the company launched the first “6 weeks to live” activation accelerator with Lightning, delivering industry-leading time-to-value. The company has supported its clients through the COVID-19 crisis with initiatives such as providing access to its Sales Insights solution free of charge. In May, Pricefx acquired French market leader Brennus Analytics, which brought industry-leading AI capabilities in pricing optimization and Pricefx’s Optimized Dynamic Pricing solution was recently named an SAP endorsed app.

“Pricing is one of the most important value creation levers for businesses, and we share Pricefx’s passion for making pricing software easier, faster and more accessible,” said Mark Beith, Partner of Apax Digital. “Companies are abandoning inefficient manual processes, disparate spreadsheets, and sub-optimal prices, and embracing Pricefx’s next-gen software, which dynamically manages, optimizes and updates prices across all channels.”

“We are thrilled to join Marcin and the whole Pricefx family on their mission to democratize pricing software and deliver best-in-class time to value and exceptional return on investment to their customers,” said Daniel O’Keefe, Managing Partner of Apax Digital.

Concurrent with this investment, Beith and O’Keefe will join Pricefx’s supervisory board.

“We are excited and proud to continue supporting the Pricefx team on their global growth journey. Pricefx demonstrates a relentless drive towards product innovation and customer success and we believe that they are well on-track to build the undisputed global category leader in pricing software,” said Axel Krieger, Founding Partner at Digital⁺ Partners.

Pricefx was recently named a finalist in Ventana’s 13th Annual Digital Innovation Awards. These awards identify the top technologies that have the most striking impact in their respective markets, recognizing pioneering vendors that contribute advancements in technology, drive change and increase value for organizations worldwide. The company has several disruptive innovations coming this year, including a self-service version of its analytics software, industry-specific Accelerator packages, enhanced CPQ functionality, and an AI-enhanced upgraded version of its PriceOptimizer product.

About Apax Digital

The Apax Digital Fund specializes in growth equity and buyout investments in high-growth enterprise software, consumer internet, and technology-enabled services companies worldwide. The Apax Digital team leverages Apax Partners’ deep tech investing expertise, global platform, and specialized operating experts, to enable technology companies and their management teams to accelerate the achievement of their full potential. For further information, please visit: www.apax.com/digital.

Over its more than 40-year history, Apax Partners has raised and advised funds with aggregate commitments of c.$50 billion. These funds provide long-term equity financing to build and strengthen world-class companies. For more information see: www.apax.com.

About Digital⁺ Partners

Digital⁺ Partners is a leading technology growth equity investor focused on European and US technology companies with €350 million assets under management. Digital⁺ aims to support ambitious entrepreneurs build global technology leaders, providing them with strategic advice and long-term financial support to help them define and execute their growth plans. The fund focuses exclusively on B2B technology investments and leverages a deep corporate network to help portfolio companies access new markets and build new partnerships. For more information please visit: www.dplus.partners.

About Pricefx

Established in 2011 in Germany, Pricefx is the global leader in SaaS pricing software, offering a comprehensive suite of solutions that are fast to implement, flexible to configure and customize, and friendly to learn and use. Pricefx delivers a complete price optimization and management platform based on native cloud architecture, providing industry leading time to value and total cost of ownership advantages to customers. Its innovative solution works for both B2B and B2C enterprises of any size, in any industry, in any part of the world. Pricefx’s business model is entirely based on the satisfaction and loyalty of its customers. Pricefx delivers Passion for Pricing. For more information, please visit www.pricefx.com.

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Media Contacts

For Pricefx

Cathy Summers, Summers PR | +1 (415) 483-0480 |cathy@summers-pr.com

For Apax Digital / Apax Partners

Global Media: Matthew Goodman / James Madsen, Greenbrook | +44 20 7952 2000 | apax@greenbrookpr.com

USA Media: Todd Fogarty, Kekst CNC | +1 212‐521 4854 | todd.fogarty@kekstcnc.com

Notes to Editors:

London-headquartered Apax Partners (www.apax.com) and Paris-headquartered Apax Partners (www.apax.fr) had a shared history but are separate, independent private equity firms.

TheyDo.io the platform for digital design thinking announced today that it has raised €400.000 in seed funding, led by Arches Capital.

TheyDo accelerates innovation with an online platform to support proven methods like customer journey mapping and Design Thinking. By managing innovation online, insights become available to everyone in the organization and allow teams to collaborate online and remotely. TheyDo shortens go-to-market time significantly and ties customer needs to business goals. With their mission to make every business process customer-centric, TheyDo is on the road to becoming the go-to platform for innovation.

Most organizations already know customer-centricity leads to better results and cuts cost in the long run, but at the same time they struggle to implement working processes outside the creative workshop. With TheyDo it becomes possible to share knowledge from qualitative research, creative workshops, and customer journeys, by managing everything in one place.

Jochem van der Veer, Co-Founder of TheyDo

The capital raise is used to rollout the customer-centric transformation program, the company developed for larger organizations. The program is designed to train multidisciplinary teams, help them to produce real results, and then scale up the process, transforming the whole organization towards working customer-centric.

This summer, the team will also release live collaboration features, designed to create an environment where multiple teams can work together in the same customer journey, live and cloud-based. Something today is only possible in (digital) whiteboard sessions. It will enable designers, marketers, managers, and executives to collaborate on improving the end-to-end customer experience while delivering on business KPI’s.

Ruben Meiland, founder of Ticketscript and ex VP of Product at Eventbrite will join the board of directors on behalf of Arches Capital. Amongst investors, Pieter Omvlee, Founder of Sketch is actively involved in the development of the platform.

Earlier this month TheyDo launched its Enterprise transformation program. For smaller organizations, a digital version will be rolled out over the coming months so every company can start working customer-centric.

About TheyDo
TheyDo is a CX platform to bring customer-centricity into the heart of every business process. What started with the insight to scale Design Thinking outside the creative workshop, is now a platform to integrate customer-centricity as an end-to-end business process. TheyDo offers a complete solution by combining her software with a transformation program, led by its certfified Design Thinking coaches.

For more information see www.theydo.io

About Arches Capital
Arches Capital, a fast-growing group of business angels, invests in startup and scale-up companies with a large growth potential. Through its investments, Arches Capital bridges the gap between formal investors (VCs) and informal investors (business angels), by joining the best of both worlds:

“ We source, select and invest like a VC;
We engage, care and inspire as the angel we are. ”

By bundling smart capital (combining funding with real business knowledge and experience) with true engagement (actively working together to achieve growth), we are able to ignite early stage companies achieve above-average growth. Arches Capital distinguishes itself from other angel networks by its active support to angels building a broad and professional investment portfolio, co-investment from Arches Capital in each deal and the unique distribution of proceeds amongst its members.

For more information, visit www.arches.capital

BRUSSELS, 17 June 2020 – Fortino Capital Partners, a Benelux-based growth equity investor in software, today announces its investment in Sigma Conso, a fast growing Corporate Performance Management software provider. Sigma Conso, headquartered in Brussels, employs over 40 FTEs and has local offices in Western-Europe and Asia serving over 600 customers.

Initially focused on consolidation software, today Sigma Conso addresses all needs of CFO in terms of Corporate Performance Management (i.e., consolidation, intercompany reconciliations, budgeting, planning, and management reporting). Along with its software offering, Sigma Conso differentiates itself through its deep financial expertise, offering training and advisory services to its customers. Sigma Conso helps out customers to generate transparency on the performance of its business, more than ever a must in these Covid-19 times.

Sigma Conso is active in 20 countries, serving over 600 customers, varying from mid-sized businesses to large companies (e.g., D’Ieteren, Sofina, Proximus, Besix,, Umicore, Eiffage and CMB).

Dominique Galloy came on board as CEO and owner in 2006. Over the last 14 years Dominique has grown Sigma Conso together with his team into an international and highly recognised software company.

Fortino Capital recognizes Sigma Conso’s leading role in the Corporate Performance Management market and the credentials the team has built up. Financial software is a core segment for Fortino Capital as B2B software investor, after its investment into MobileXpense, a leading European expense management provider.

Fortino Capital acquires Sigma Conso alongside management to further grow and expand the company internationally. This is the 20^th B2B software investment by Fortino Capital, and the 6^th platform investment of its Growth Private Equity Fund I.

Dominique Galloy, CEO of Sigma Conso: “Over the past two decades, we have become a sizeable European player by serving our customers with great software and deep expertise. Together with Fortino Capital, a real expert in B2B software, we are now ready for an accelerated growth phase together. I am personally very excited about the prospects of the business. With the support of Fortino Capital, I am committed to further serve our customers in a great way.”

Filip Van Innis, Investment Director at Fortino Capital: “We are impressed by Sigma Conso’s strong track record. Being a company at the core of our Growth Fund strategy, i.e., mission critical software in an expanding market, we are delighted to support Dominique and his team going forward. As much as we are pleased to welcome Patrick Van Deven, as Chairman of the Board. Patrick is a seasoned software executive who made his career at both SAS and SAP.”

About Sigma Conso

Sigma Conso, founded in 2002, provides Corporate Performance Management software together with training and advisory services. The Company has a global presence, evidenced by its diversified customer base in 20 countries and local offices in Europe and Asia. For more information, please visit www.sigmaconso.com.

About Fortino Capital Partners

Fortino Capital Partners is a European enterprise software investor, managing a €240m growth private equity fund and two venture capital funds for earlier stage software opportunities.  The firm has offices in Antwerp and Amsterdam. Fortino Capital’s investment portfolio includes MobileXpense, Efficy CRM, Odin Groep, Tenzinger, Maxxton, LetsBuild, Teamleader, among others. For more information, please visit
www.fortinocapital.com.