Questel acquires Direct Validation

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Questel, one of the world’s largest intellectual property software and service providers, has signed an agreement to acquire Direct Validation.

Founded in 1988 and based in Stockholm (Sweden), Direct Validation is a major player in EP validations services, the process of registering granted European patents in the countries where they will ultimately be enforceable.

“Questel has provided European patent validation services in the past, mainly through partners,” says Charles Besson, Questel CEO. “This investment will provide us with yet another highly synergistic client offering within the innovation and IP lifecycle.”

”Connecting Questel’s intellectual property solutions and worldwide network with Direct Validation’s unique knowledge of EP validations will translate into deep savings for clients of both of our companies,” says Olle Bäcklund, CEO of Direct Validation.

For more information, please visit www.questel.com

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Signavio raises $177 Million led by Apax Digital to accelerate global expansion

Apax Digital

Investment to fuel further international growth and technology innovation for Signavio’s one-million users 

Berlin, New York – July 11, 2019: Signavio, a leading provider of business transformation solutions, today announced a $177 million investment to fuel continued international expansion and further investment in its world-class software suite. The transaction was led by Apax Digital, the growth equity team of Apax Partners, with participation from DTCP. Existing investor Summit Partners will retain an equity stake in the business.

Signavio’s Business Transformation Suite enables its over 1,300 customers to effectively mine, model, monitor, manage and maintain their business processes. Its intelligent decision-making tools address digital transformation, operational excellence and customer centricity, helping place process at the very heart of organizations. Signavio has grown its revenue by more than 70% in the last twelve months. Today the company’s software is used by more than one million users across industries and geographies, including leading companies such as SAP, Deloitte, Liberty Mutual, Bosch, Comcast-NBCUniversal.

This new investment will be used to accelerate international expansion and to further invest in Signavio’s product suite. The company already has 9 offices across the world and is expanding operations in Japan and India, increasing its employee base by over 50% in 2019. Earlier this year, Signavio was recognized as a March 2019 Gartner Peer Insights Customers’ Choice for Enterprise Business Process Analysis Software.

“10 years ago, we set out on a journey to tackle the time-consuming practices that limit business productivity,” said Dr. Gero Decker, CEO and co-founder of Signavio. “This significant new investment further validates our approach to solve business problems faster and more efficiently, unleashing the power of process through our unique Business Transformation Suite. We are thrilled to welcome Apax Digital as our new lead partner, and look forward to building upon our success to date by leveraging our partners’ operating capabilities and global platforms for our international expansion.”

Concurrent with this investment, Daniel O’Keefe, Managing Partner, and Mark Beith, Managing Director, of Apax Digital will join Signavio’s board of directors. Summit Partners Managing Director Matthias Allgaier will retain a seat on the company’s board of directors.

“As businesses have become more global, and workforces more distributed, business processes have proliferated, and become more complex,” noted Mr. O’Keefe and Mr. Beith. “Signavio’s cloud-native suite allows employees across an enterprise to collaborate and transform their businesses by digitizing, optimizing and ultimately automating their processes. We are tremendously excited to partner with the Signavio team and to support their vision.”

“With innovative, intelligent and easy-to-use solutions, Signavio is helping to enable digital transformation across thousands of organizations worldwide, enabling new use cases and extending the reach of BPM software from IT to business users,” said Matthias Allgaier, Managing Director with Summit Partners, which first invested in Signavio in 2015. “It has been a delight to work closely with Gero and the entire team to support the company’s impressive growth thus far. We are thrilled to welcome Apax and to continue our partnership with Signavio.”

The transaction is expected to close later this year, subject to regulatory approvals.

About Signavio
Over 1 million users in more than 1,300 organizations worldwide rely on Signavio’s unique offering to make process part of their DNA. Signavio’s business transformation suite enables mid-size and large organizations to effectively mine, model, monitor, manage and maintain their business processes. Its intelligent decision-making tools address digital transformation, operational excellence and customer centricity, placing them at the heart of the world’s leading organizations. Headquartered in Berlin, with offices in US, UK, France, Netherlands, Switzerland, Singapore and Australia, Signavio is well placed to deliver local services on a global scale. For more information, visit www.signavio.com.

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 http://digital.apax.com.

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 DTCP
DTCP is an investment management group with c. $1.7 billion assets under management and advisory from Deutsche Telekom and other corporate and institutional investors, and a portfolio of over 60 companies. The group provides venture and growth capital, private equity investments, and advisory services to the technology, media and telecommunication sectors. It operates and invests in Europe, the US, and Israel. To learn more about DTCP, visit www.telekom-capital.com or @TelekomCapital on Twitter.

About Summit Partners
Founded in 1984, Summit Partners is a global alternative investment firm that is currently managing more than $19 billion in capital dedicated to growth equity, fixed income and public equity opportunities. Summit invests across growth sectors of the economy and has invested in more than 500 companies in technology, healthcare and other growth industries. Summit maintains offices in North America and Europe, and invests in companies around the world. For more information, please see www.summitpartners.com or on Twitter at @SummitPartners.

Media Contacts 

For Signavio

Global Media: Geraldine Teboul, Signavio | +49 151 54070110 | geraldine.teboul@signavio.com
USA Media: Kyle Tildsley, PAN Communications | +1 978 790 2063| ktildsley@pancomm.com
Germany Media: Natascha Hass, PR-Com | +49 89 59997 801| natascha.hass@pr-com.de

For Apax Digital / Apax Partners

Global Media: Andrew Kenny, Apax | +44 20 7 872 6371 | andrew.kenny@apax.com
USA Media: Todd Fogarty, Kekst CNC | +1 212-521 4854 | todd.fogarty@kekstcnc.com
UK Media: Matthew Goodman / James Madsen, Greenbrook | +44 20 7952 2000 | apax@greenbrookpr.com

For DTCP

Global Media: Julia Wolters, DTCP |+49 160 6809906 | julia.wolters@telekom-capital.com

For Summit Partners

Global Media: Meg Devine, Summit Partners | +1 617 824 1047 | mdevine@summitpartners.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.

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Rhapsody and Corepoint merge to advance Interoperability in Healthcare

HG Capital

10 July 2019. Rhapsody, a global leader in healthcare data interoperability, today announced that the company will merge with Corepoint Health, the supplier of the Best in KLAS® healthcare integration platform. The transaction will bring together two companies at the forefront of interoperability and create a dynamic combination of technology, talent, services, and trusted customer relationships to address the most complex healthcare interoperability challenges.

Please find the full press release here

“We move decisively when perfect opportunities present themselves,” said Philippe Houssiau, Operating Partner at Hg. “The opportunity to bring Corepoint and Rhapsody together was incredibly compelling. Our investments in these two phenomenal companies demonstrate how excited we are about the future of interoperability. Rhapsody is off to an amazing start as an independent company: joining forces with Corepoint will enable the combined team to accelerate the delivery of FHIR-based services, cloud-based integration solutions and support for regional and national interoperability frameworks.”

Rhapsody and Corepoint merge to advance Interoperability in Healthcare

HG Capital

10 July 2019. Rhapsody, a global leader in healthcare data interoperability, today announced that the company will merge with Corepoint Health, the supplier of the Best in KLAS® healthcare integration platform. The transaction will bring together two companies at the forefront of interoperability and create a dynamic combination of technology, talent, services, and trusted customer relationships to address the most complex healthcare interoperability challenges.

Please find the full press release here

“We move decisively when perfect opportunities present themselves,” said Philippe Houssiau, Operating Partner at Hg. “The opportunity to bring Corepoint and Rhapsody together was incredibly compelling. Our investments in these two phenomenal companies demonstrate how excited we are about the future of interoperability. Rhapsody is off to an amazing start as an independent company: joining forces with Corepoint will enable the combined team to accelerate the delivery of FHIR-based services, cloud-based integration solutions and support for regional and national interoperability frameworks.”

Litera Microsystems Acquires Workshare

HG Capital

Creating a Leading Supplier of Document Drafting Technology

The combination offers professionals a simplified end-to-end solution which simplifies the document drafting lifecycle.

Litera Microsystems today announces its acquisition of Workshare in a move that underlines the company’s focus on providing a seamless drafting experience for users across best-of-breed technologies. The deal will enable firms which currently use both suppliers to consolidate their relationships, simplify the process of updating software and rely on a single, world-class, support team for the full suite.

Earlier this year, Litera Microsystems partnered with Hg, a specialist private equity investor focused on software and service businesses based in London, Munich, and New York. Litera Microsystems was able to leverage Hg’s network and knowledge of the global legal software market to help drive this integration with Workshare, adding further products to the suite, for the benefit of existing and future customers.

Please find the full press release on the Litera Microsystems website.

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Litera Microsystems Acquires Workshare

HG Capital

Creating a Leading Supplier of Document Drafting Technology

The combination offers professionals a simplified end-to-end solution which simplifies the document drafting lifecycle.

Litera Microsystems today announces its acquisition of Workshare in a move that underlines the company’s focus on providing a seamless drafting experience for users across best-of-breed technologies. The deal will enable firms which currently use both suppliers to consolidate their relationships, simplify the process of updating software and rely on a single, world-class, support team for the full suite.

Earlier this year, Litera Microsystems partnered with Hg, a specialist private equity investor focused on software and service businesses based in London, Munich, and New York. Litera Microsystems was able to leverage Hg’s network and knowledge of the global legal software market to help drive this integration with Workshare, adding further products to the suite, for the benefit of existing and future customers.

Please find the full press release on the Litera Microsystems website.

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Litera Microsystems Acquires Workshare

HG Capital

Creating a Leading Supplier of Document Drafting Technology

The combination offers professionals a simplified end-to-end solution which simplifies the document drafting lifecycle.

Litera Microsystems today announces its acquisition of Workshare in a move that underlines the company’s focus on providing a seamless drafting experience for users across best-of-breed technologies. The deal will enable firms which currently use both suppliers to consolidate their relationships, simplify the process of updating software and rely on a single, world-class, support team for the full suite.

Earlier this year, Litera Microsystems partnered with Hg, a specialist private equity investor focused on software and service businesses based in London, Munich, and New York. Litera Microsystems was able to leverage Hg’s network and knowledge of the global legal software market to help drive this integration with Workshare, adding further products to the suite, for the benefit of existing and future customers.

Please find the full press release on the Litera Microsystems website.

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Perforce Software Receives Strategic Investment From Francisco Partners To Accelerate Growth

Franciso Partners

With Backing from Leading Investors Clearlake Capital and Francisco Partners, Perforce DevOps Platform Poised to Continue Winning Enterprise Customers

Minneapolis, MN, San Francisco, CA, and Santa Monica, CA – Perforce Software, Inc. (“Perforce” or the “Company”), a market leading provider of enterprise scale software solutions to technology developers and development operations (“DevOps”) teams requiring productivity, visibility, and scale during all phases of the development lifecycle, today announced it has closed on the significant new equity investment from Francisco Partners, a global technology-focused private equity fund. The firm joins Clearlake Capital Group, L.P. (“Clearlake”), which initially invested in Perforce in late 2017. The Company will continue to be led by the Chief Executive Officer, Mark Ties, and the current management team, who invested alongside Clearlake and Francisco Partners in the transaction.

Clearlake and Francisco Partners both possess deep infrastructure software experience and will leverage their collective knowledge and resources to help expand Perforce’s market share and continue to drive its growth strategy.

Perforce has built a broad portfolio of products within DevOps spanning the entire software development lifecycle. The Company has expanded its offering from version control software to agile management, application management and components, code management and collaboration, and automated testing. As a leader in the DevOps industry, Perforce provides a suite of solutions that balance the security, compliance, and control needs of leading enterprises while providing developers the freedom to innovate at global scale.

“With this investment from Francisco Partners, Perforce has gained additional resources to continue our proven buy-and-build strategy and further support our strong relationships with our customers,” said Mark Ties, Perforce CEO. “We are excited to continue to expand to new geographies and product adjacencies, becoming the vendor of choice for large, global enterprises looking to scale efficiently and effectively. Perforce is positioned to continue to gain market share as it continues to provide best-in-class solutions to its enterprise customers.”

Brian Decker, Partner at Francisco Partners, said, “We are very impressed with Perforce’s track record of accretive acquisitions and successful integrations, simultaneously entering new product adjacencies while continuously improving its go to market strategy to win new customers. The Company has grown significantly over the past few years and has established itself as a leader in innovation, functionality, and scalability for DevOps.” Evan Daar, Principal at Francisco Partners, added, “As companies across all end markets increasingly transition to incorporate DevOps best practices, Perforce is well positioned to serve customer needs across the development lifecycle.”

Prashant Mehrotra, Partner, and Paul Huber, Vice President at Clearlake, commented, “Since our investment, we have collaborated with Mark and his team to implement our O.P.S.® framework to invest and sustainably grow the business. The team has further demonstrated their ability to accelerate organic and inorganic growth, and we are confident that with the combined support from Clearlake and Francisco Partners, Perforce will reach new heights. We are excited to partner with Francisco Partners as Perforce embarks on this next stage of growth.”

About Perforce

Perforce is a leading provider of enterprise scale software solutions to technology developers and development operations (“DevOps”) teams requiring productivity, visibility and scale during all phases of the development lifecycle. Enterprises across the globe rely on its agile planning and ALM tools, automated mobile and web testing, developer collaboration, static code analysis, version control and repository management solutions as the foundation for successful DevOps at scale. Perforce is trusted by the world’s most innovative brands, including NVIDIA, Pixar, Scania, Ubisoft, and VMware. For more information, please visit www.perforce.com.

About Francisco Partners

Francisco Partners is an investment firm that specializes in technology and technology-enabled businesses. Since its launch over 19 years ago, Francisco Partners has raised over $14 billion in committed capital and invested in more than 200 technology companies, making it one of the most active and longstanding investors in the technology industry. The firm invests in opportunities where its deep sectoral knowledge and operational expertise can help companies realize their full potential. For more information, please visit www.franciscopartners.com.

About Clearlake

Clearlake Capital Group, L.P. is a leading private investment firm founded in 2006. With a sector-focused approach, the firm seeks to partner with world-class management teams by providing patient, long-term capital to dynamic businesses that can benefit from Clearlake’s operational improvement approach, O.P.S.®. The firm’s core target sectors are software and technology-enabled services; industrials and energy; and consumer. Clearlake currently has over $10 billion of assets under management and its senior investment principals have led or co-led over 100 investments. More information is available at www.clearlake.com.

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Cinven to invest in Jaggaer

Cinven

Investment in leading global procurement software business

International private equity firm, Cinven, today announces that it has agreed to a significant investment in Jaggaer, a global provider of procurement software for large and medium-sized enterprises. Alongside Cinven, Accel-KKR will maintain an interest in Jaggaer.

Headquartered in Research Triangle Park, North Carolina, Jaggaer provides cloud-based Source-to-Pay eProcurement solutions for spend management, which enables a fluid supply chain for its customers, driven by powerful spend analytics, vendor sourcing, contract lifecycle management, savings tracking, and efficient accounts payable systems on a single platform.  Jaggaer’s international office network spans the Americas, APAC and EMEA and serves more than 2,000 customers across a broad range of sectors. Through its network of c. 4 million suppliers across 70 countries globally, Jaggaer supports some of the largest commercial, manufacturing and life sciences companies in the world to manage billions of dollars of annual spend. Blue-chip customers include McDonald’s, DHL, Merck, Rolls-Royce and SABMiller, as well as leading academic and public sector institutions.

Building on its successful investment in Visma, a Software as a Service (‘SaaS’) provider, Cinven’s Technology, Media and Telecom (‘TMT’) Sector team worked closely with its US Regional team to identify Jaggaer as an attractive investment opportunity, given:

  • the strong underlying structural growth trends in the global procurement software market, driven by increased adoption of spend management software tools;
  • the quality and breadth of Jaggaer’s proprietary SaaS Source-to-Pay software platform, JAGGAER ONE, which delivers market-leading capabilities in both upstream and downstream spend management across direct and indirect spend;
  • Jaggaer’s best-in-class reputation with its customers, evidenced by its market-leading customer retention rates;
  • Jaggaer’s strong track record of growth, both organically and through buy and build, with a number of businesses successfully acquired and integrated in recent years; and
  • Jaggaer’s excellent leadership team, led by CEO Robert Bonavito, with decades of experience in enterprise software.

Chris Good, Partner at Cinven and Co-Head of Cinven’s TMT Sector team, said:

“Cinven is excited to have the opportunity to invest behind the outstanding Jaggaer team. As a growing and profitable spend management software business with a very strong track record, and following a number of successful acquisitions, the business is poised for continued significant growth.

“Cinven intends to support Jaggaer management’s ambitions to drive growth through investment in R&D; building on market-leading products, such as the recently launched JAGGAER ONE platform; as well as making further acquisitions in the future.”

Michael Korzinstone, Senior Principal at Cinven, added:

“Cinven’s investment in Jaggaer shows how effectively our Sector and Regional teams work together to identify successful target businesses in growth subsectors. We developed our investment thesis following a subsector review of the global Supply Chain Management software industry, which identified Jaggaer as a highly attractive and market-leading business.

“Given the positive underlying return on investment that Jaggaer’s customers are able to generate, we are confident that corporations will continue to find value in partnering with Jaggaer to manage their procurement spend and identify cost savings across their businesses.”

Robert Bonavito, CEO of Jaggaer, commented:

“Spend management software provides granular, actionable data at all levels, which not only enables accurate profit assessment, but also helps with forecasting.  We are seeing increased demand from businesses looking to manage their procurement spend more effectively. We have also been successful in developing our products to better serve our customers, such as using Artificial Intelligence, machine learning and even predictive order management technology.

“We are delighted to be partnering with the Cinven team, who have impressed us with their knowledge of the market and ability to work with companies like ours to expand geographically as well as invest in R&D and product development to drive growth.”

Cinven’s investment in Jaggaer builds on its strong track record in TMT, following its successful realisations of Visma, a leading business solutions provider, in May 2019; Ufinet Group, a provider of fibre infrastructure and transmission services to telecom operators, in July 2018; and HEG, a provider of hosting and domain services, in April 2017.

Alongside these realisations, Cinven has continued to actively invest in the sector, most recently acquiring RTB House, a global digital advertising technology provider, and One.com, a leading European web hosting provider.

This transaction represents Cinven’s third investment in the US, a region where the firm is focused on the TMT and Healthcare sectors.  Cinven successfully realised its investment in US-headquartered Medpace, a global contract research organisation (‘CRO’), in August 2018.

The transaction is subject to customary regulatory and anti-trust approvals.
Advisors to Cinven on the transaction included: UBS Securities LLC, Latham & Watkins LLP and Deloitte LLP.
Advisors to Accel-KKR included: Goldman Sachs & Co. LLC, Stifel and Kirkland & Ellis LLP.  Goldman Sachs & Co. LLC and UBS Securities LLC are also providing committed financing for the transaction.

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Herkules sells Puzzel to Marlin Equity Partners

Hercules Capital

Herkules Private Equity Fund III (“HPEF III” or “Herkules”) is pleased to announce the sale of Puzzel AS (“Puzzel”). On 12 April 2019, HPEF III entered into an agreement to sell Puzzel, a leading European provider of cloud-based contact center software solutions, to Marlin Equity Partners
During the Herkules ownership, Puzzel was transformed into a SaaS business. Significant investments were made into the software platform. Today, the company has a comprehensive multi-channel CCaaS solution that is both scalable and flexible, and designed to support contact centers of all sizes. The company combines its omni-channel technology with artificial intelligence capabilities to provide comprehensive, end-to-end customer interaction solutions in an age of digitization.

As part of the Herkules value creation plan, Sales & Marketing was strengthened and Puzzel has experienced strong software growth across Europe that has been fueled by feedback and advocacy from market-leading customers. In 2018, Puzzel was recognized as a Challenger in the Gartner Magic Quadrant report for Contact Center as a Service in Western Europe for the fourth consecutive year given its strong growth, functional capabilities, strengths in standards and compliance, customer service and support.

Puzzel is headquartered in Oslo, Norway, with offices in six European markets including the U.K and the company serves more than 900 customers across 40 countries.

“Puzzel’s leading position in the market, knowledgeable employees and pioneering technology platform positions them well to continue to successfully scale their business,” says Gert Munthe, Partner at Herkules Capital

The exit process was advised by Carnegie Investment Bank, Wiersholm, PwC, and BCG. It was strong interest from both Industrial buyers and financial sponsors.

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