Accelerates Machine Vision strategy with perClass BV, leader in intuitive machine-learning spectral analysis software

July 7, 2022

Bolton, MA- Headwall Photonics, a world-leader in high-performance hyperspectral imaging systems and OEM devices for applications in remote sensing and industrial machine vision including food quality/safety inspection, precision agriculture, and environmental monitoring, amongst others, announced today its strategic growth investment in perClass BV. perClass is the developer of the industry leading perClass Mira spectral analysis software package, which integrates with various spectral sensors and enables intuitive spectral imaging analysis for advanced machine vision applications in research, industrial, and various commercial deployments.

“Spectral imaging has been used in research for decades to help answer a variety of complex questions. Until recently, this involved a time-consuming process of data acquisition, model development, and lengthy data analysis typically performed by a senior level scientist,” noted Don Battistoni, President of Headwall. “perClass Mira eliminates those complexities through an intuitive interface backed up by advanced machine learning algorithms, in the process dramatically expanding the addressable use cases for spectral imaging across numerous industrial markets.”

“perClass’ mission remains to simplify interpretation of spectral imaging data to expand deployment for industrial applications,” Dr. Pavel Paclik, perClass Founder and General Manager adds. “We remain dedicated to and will continue to support and work with our many loyal and new spectral sensor manufacturer partners. This growth investment and our extended partnership with Headwall will facilitate our ability to provide best in class solutions to the market for any sensor, and our deeper integration with a leading sensor provider accelerates our goal of advancing widespread adoption of spectral imaging in real-world applications.”

Headwall’s award-winning Hyperspec® MV.X already utilizes perClass Mira to both create spectral classification models and deploy them in applications such as the detection of food contamination, material sorting in recycling, and grading of fruit and nuts, amongst other applications. Both Headwall and perClass are focused on bringing hyperspectral imaging to more industries and researchers globally by introducing more intuitive yet powerful spectral analysis workflows and by eliminating the data interpretation complexities that have historically limited broader hyperspectral imaging adoption.

About Headwall
Headwall, headquartered in Bolton, MA, designs and manufactures hyperspectral solutions and technologies for the industrial, government, academic, and research end markets. The company’s products operate across the spectral range to analyze complex hyperspectral images and provide actionable insights to its customers. For more information, please visit www.headwallphotonics.com

About perClass BV
perClass BV was founded in 2006 to bring state-of-the-art machine learning to industrial practitioners and researchers via a powerful suite of perClass software tools. Following continued software development and an evolving understanding of the needs of the industrial market, in 2018 perClass released perClass Mira, a sensor agnostic software package which dramatically simplifies interpretation of images collected from all the world’s leading spectral imaging sensors. perClass focuses on addressing real-world work-flows and on enabling professionals around the world to develop highly innovative solutions. The company has organized dozens of practical training courses for a worldwide audience. With this investment, perClass becomes part of the Headwall Group, of which the perClass shareholders are now partial owners. For more information, please visit https://www.perclass.com

For more information, please contact:
Ross Nakatsuji
Headwall Marketing Communications Manager
580 Main Street
Bolton, Massachusetts 01740
Tel: +1-978-353-4051
E-Mail: rnakatsuji@headwallphotonics.com

Dr.Pavel Paclik
perClass BV
Molengraaffsingel 12
2629JD, Delft, The Netherlands
Tel: +31 648060368
E-Mail: pavel.paclik@perclass.com

Under Clearlake’s ownership, Brightly transformed into a leading cloud-based asset management software platform with a broad suite of products solving operational and planning needs

 

Santa Monica, CA and Cary, NC – June 27, 2022 – Clearlake Capital Group, L.P. (together with certain of its affiliates, “Clearlake”) today announced it has entered into a definitive agreement to sell Brightly Software, Inc. (“Brightly Software”, “Brightly” or the “Company”) to Siemens AG (“Siemens”) (FRA:SIE) for $1.575 billion of upfront cash consideration, along with $300 million in cash earn-out payments, for a total of $1.875 billion. The transaction is expected to close in the second half of 2022 and is subject to customary closing conditions and regulatory approvals.

 

Brightly is a leading software-as-a-service (“SaaS”) provider of cloud-based enterprise asset management and facility operations management. Clearlake acquired Brightly, formerly known as “Dude Solutions,” in June 2019 and subsequently executed on its O.P.S.^® strategy by partnering with management to support the Company through multiple organic and inorganic strategic initiatives.

 

“We are thrilled by the progress made by Kevin and the Brightly team as the Company has expanded to become a leading provider of enterprise asset management SaaS solutions across a broad range of applications, end-markets, and geographies,” said Behdad Eghbali, Co-Founder and Managing Partner, and Prashant Mehrotra, Partner and Managing Director, at Clearlake. “Over the past three years, we have transformed the operating expense structure of the business to enable efficient growth and significant profitability, while improving the quality of the Company’s revenue streams. We are particularly pleased with Brightly’s progress leveraging the best practices from the Clearlake software portfolio to become a high performing SaaS platform, and we believe the foundation Kevin and the management team have established positions the Company for continued growth under Siemens’ ownership.”

 

Kevin Kemmerer, Chief Executive Officer at Brightly Software, said, “This is a very exciting day for Brightly as it represents an important milestone in the Company’s history after going through a strategic transformation over the past few years under Clearlake’s guidance. Siemens’ acquisition of Brightly represents confidence in our ongoing plans to scale across end-markets and geographies, our ability to accelerate our market leadership position in enterprise asset management, and our goal to help our clients create more sustainable communities. We are proud and grateful to Clearlake of the work we have done together.”

 

Over the course of Clearlake’s investment, Brightly expanded into new end-markets and additional geographies, while enhancing its product suite in existing markets by developing and investing in new product offerings, including solutions with a focus on ESG and sustainability management. Leveraging Clearlake’s best practices from its software investment portfolio, Brightly reconfigured its go-to-market motion and transitioned many customers to a longer-term partnership model, all while maintaining the platform innovation that has differentiated Brightly in the past. These efforts were supplemented by executing on four strategic acquisitions, including Assetic, Confirm, Energy Profiles, and Facility Health.

 

These initiatives under Clearlake’s three-year ownership resulted in an approximately 100% increase in annual recurring revenue and a significant expansion in the Company’s EBITDA margins. Today, Brightly has a global customer base with over 12,000 clients across Education, Public Infrastructure, Manufacturing, Healthcare, Commercial Real Estate, and other end-markets, and was recently recognized as a “Leader in Enterprise Asset Management Software” from Verdantix, an award-winning independent research firm.

 

“Brightly will enable us to leapfrog to the next level of performance for buildings. With seamless data exchange between our offerings, our customers can expect enhanced efficiency, lower downtimes and maintenance costs, shorter lifecycles, better data-driven decisions and more satisfied tenants,” added Matthias Rebellius, Member of the Managing Board of Siemens and CEO of Siemens Smart Infrastructure. “The acquisition will speed up our target of becoming a leading software company also in infrastructure and support our vision of creating fully autonomous buildings that continuously learn from and adapt to the needs of their tenants.”

 

William Blair & Company LLC and SVB Securities LLC acted as financial advisors to Brightly. Sidley Austin LLP provided legal counsel to Brightly and Clearlake.

 

About Clearlake

 

Clearlake Capital Group, L.P. is an investment firm founded in 2006 operating integrated businesses across private equity, credit and other related strategies. With a sector-focused approach, the firm seeks to partner with experienced 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 technology, industrials and consumer. Clearlake currently has over $72 billion of assets under management and its senior investment principals have led or co-led over 400 investments. The firm is headquartered in Santa Monica, CA with affiliates in Dallas, TX, London, UK and Dublin, Ireland. More information is available at www.clearlake.com and on Twitter @Clearlake.

 

About Brightly Software

 

Brightly, the global leader in intelligent asset management solutions, enables organizations to transform the performance of their assets. Brightly’s sophisticated cloud-based platform leverages more than 20 years of data to deliver predictive insights that help users through the key phases of the entire asset lifecycle. More than 12,000 clients of every size worldwide depend on Brightly’s complete suite of intuitive software – including CMMS, EAM, Strategic Asset Management, IoT Remote Monitoring, Sustainability and Community Engagement. Paired with award-winning training, support and consulting services, Brightly helps light the way to a bright future with smarter assets and sustainable communities. For more information, visit www.brightlysoftware.com.

 

About Siemens

 

Siemens is a technology company focused on industry, infrastructure, transport, and healthcare. From more resource-efficient factories, resilient supply chains, and smarter buildings and grids, to cleaner and more comfortable transportation as well as advanced healthcare, the company creates technology with purpose adding real value for customers. By combining the real and the digital worlds, Siemens empowers its customers to transform their industries and markets, helping them to transform the everyday for billions of people. Siemens also owns a majority stake in the publicly listed company Siemens Healthineers, a globally leading medical technology provider shaping the future of healthcare. In addition, Siemens holds a minority stake in Siemens Energy, a global leader in the transmission and generation of electrical power. In fiscal 2021, which ended on September 30, 2021, the Siemens Group generated revenue of €62.3 billion and net income of €6.7 billion. As of September 30, 2021, the company had around 303,000 employees worldwide. Further information is available on the Internet at www.siemens.com.

 

 

Media Contacts

 

For Brightly Software:

Adam Novak

PAN Communications

brightly@pancomm.com

 

For Clearlake:

Jennifer Hurson

Lambert & Co.

jhurson@lambert.com

(845) 507-0571

 

For Siemens:

Florian Martens

florian.martens@siemens.com

+49 162 2306627

UniSea has delivered maritime software since 1997 and is today the leading provider of HSEQ SaaS, supporting maritime customers worldwide. To accelerate international growth and support the company’s continued development, Unisea is now partnering with Adelis as new majority owner.

With over 25 years of experience as a global maritime software provider, UniSea supports its customers with regulatory compliance and optimising internal work processes through a modern and user friendly HSEQ SaaS. Moreover, UniSea is also an IT services partner for key customers. The company has a world leading position in its niche. Today, UniSea serves over 90 customers with 1 500 vessels across the Nordics, Europe, and North America, including some of the largest shipping companies in the world.

”We have made a thorough assessment of the broader maritime software market, where we see multiple secular trends driving future growth. UniSea stands out as a clear market leader within its niche, and is a strong platform for further global expansion within the fast-growing maritime software market. We are impressed by UniSea’s experienced management team and approach to customer-driven product development, and we look forward to partnering with the management team to support the continued growth journey,” says Jørgen Møinichen and Lene Stern from Adelis.

”UniSea is seeking a partner to help accelerate our international growth and support the company’s continued development. We know that Adelis has extensive experience in developing software companies globally and are excited to partner with them to further improve our value proposition towards our customers and create a leading global maritime software company,” says UniSea’s CEO Kurt Roar Vilhelmsen.

For further information:

Kurt Roar Vilhelmsen, UniSea AS, krv@unisea.no, +47 915 75 915

Len Lene Sandvoll Stern, Adelis Equity Partners, lene.stern@adelisequity.com. +46 702 81 34 24

Jørgen Møinichen, Adelis Equity Partners, jorgen.moinichen@adelisequity.com, +46 790 77 0221

About Unisea

UniSea is a software and consultancy house with a dedicated shipping and offshore focus. Since 1997, UniSea has delivered market leading HSEQ and operations support software to a large number of vessels and companies worldwide. The strategy is to specialize in optimizing customers’ internal work processes through user-friendly and industry-specific solutions. Today, UniSea has around 90 customers, including some of the world’s largest shipping companies, who use UniSea software modules on almost 1 500 vessels worldwide. For more information, please visit www.unisea.no

About Adelis Equity Partners

Adelis is a growth partner for well-positioned, Nordic companies. Adelis partners with management and/or owners to build businesses in growth segments and with strong market positions. Since raising its first fund in 2013, Adelis has been one of the most active investors in the Nordic middle-market, making 34 platform investments and more than 150 add-on acquisitions. Adelis today manages approximately €2 billion in capital. For more information, please visitwww.adelisequity.com.

Main Capital Partners today announces the acquisition of a majority stake in Bizzdesign, a global Enterprise Architecture software company. Bizzdesign’s Enterprise Architecture cloud platform helps customers with complex digital business changes by giving them insights to increase the success rate of business transformation and drive strategic execution. The partnership with Main strengthens Bizzdesign’s market-leadership position and fuels its growth strategy by further expanding its global footprint and executing strategic add-on acquisitions.

Bizzdesign, headquartered in The Netherlands, was founded in 2000 by a team of Dutch innovators as the commercial spin-off of a Research and Development institute. The company’s growth has accelerated significantly over the years, fuelled by its inspiring customer-centric vision, relevant and innovative product offerings, talented employees, and a dedicated global partner system. Bizzdesign has local international operating offices in Boston (USA), London (UK), and Gronau (Germany).

In 2021, Bizzdesign was recognised as a leader in Gartner’s Magic Quadrant for Enterprise Architecture for the 6^th consecutive time. Bizzdesign Horizzon, its flagship Enterprise Architecture SaaS platform, brings together strategy, IT architecture, operating models, data, capabilities, change portfolios and ideas into a single, intuitive, collaborative business design platform. Real-time visibility of key metrics and trends allows customers to take action quickly.

Bizzdesign has more than 350 customers globally with a strong customer presence in the financial services and public sectors. The company counts many blue-chip giants amongst its global base, including Desjardins Technology Group, Maersk, T-Mobile and ASML. Bizzdesign has direct operations in EMEA and North America, and it has recently expanded to the Asia-Pacific region with a presence in Australia.

International growth acceleration
Supported by Main’s international software expertise, Bizzdesign will now look to further develop its product portfolio offering to enable customers to achieve rapid time to value of their business transformation initiatives. In addition, Bizzdesign and Main will jointly aim to accelerate its already impressive growth trajectory. This strategy will include the expansion and delivery of its innovative product offering and roadmap, and strategic add-on acquisitions with a prerequisite for geographical expansion.

Hugo Ehrnreich, Chief Executive Officer of BiZZdesign, commented:
“We’re proud of how we’ve consolidated and expanded our global leadership position over the last five years. We’ve done so thanks to our growing world-class customer base, uniquely powerful Enterprise Architecture cloud platform, and above all, our unique culture and the unrivalled expertise, passion and dedication of our team. But this is only the beginning. We see immense untapped potential to ‘take our company to the next level’ and unleash the full value and power of Enterprise Architecture for our customers’ businesses and the broader enterprise, business, solution and security architect community. We’re therefore delighted to partner with Main to accelerate this path to ‘next-level value’ and strengthen our product offering and innovation, geographic footprint and global strategic partner network through selected strategic add-on acquisitions.”

Dr. Harmen van den Berg, co-founder of Bizzdesign, said:
“Over the past 22 years, Bizzdesign has grown from a small Dutch R&D start-up to a Global Leader in Enterprise Architecture and we’re partnering with some of the largest private and public organizations in the world. As founders, we’re proud to welcome Main as co-investors to the Bizzdesign family. It was critical for us to find the right partner with the right cultural fit and a strong expert team to support us in scaling further while ensuring continuity for our customers and our team. With Main, we’re convinced that we’ve found this partner and we’re excited to write the next chapter of our company’s story together.’’

Pieter van Bodegraven, Managing Partner Benelux at Main Capital Partners, added:
“We have known the founders and management team of Bizzdesign for several years and have been consistently impressed by their performance. Bizzdesign is a leading software provider in the Enterprise Architecture market, which has been rapidly expanding in recent years. The increasing need to align business strategy with IT and the complexity of these change projects is expected to continuously drive growth moving forward. We are therefore delighted to partner with the Bizzdesign team and combine forces to further strengthen and accelerate the company’s profitable growth track record through the combination of strong continued organic growth and strategic add-on acquisitions.”

Bizzdesign
Founded in 2000, Bizzdesign is the trusted global SaaS Enterprise Architecture platform and recognized as a leader by major analyst firms. They help the world’s leading public and private organizations guarantee the success of investment prioritization, transformation initiatives, and risk management. Bizzdesign helps architects and executives to see a full multi-dimensional picture, find and design the right path and execute with confidence to their targeted future. The company believes that success should not be a matter of luck. It should be by design.

Main Capital Partners
Main Capital Partners is a leading software investor in the Benelux, DACH and the Nordics. Main has almost 20 years of experience in strengthening software companies and works closely together with management teams of its portfolio companies as a strategic partner, in order to realize sustainable growth and build excellent software groups. Main counts over 50 employees and has offices in The Hague, Stockholm and Düsseldorf. As of October 2021, Main has over EUR 2.2 billion of assets under management. Main has invested in more than 130 software companies to date, whom have created jobs for approximately 5,000 employees.

LawPay and MyCase Combine to Power Modern Law Firms as a Legal Tech Software Company

AUSTIN, TX (June 9, 2022) — AffiniPay, the parent company of LawPay, announced today that it will acquire legal practice management software company, MyCase, from funds advised by Apax. This combination creates one of the fastest-growing integrated legal practice management software and payments companies, and strengthens both LawPay and MyCase’s commitment to serve all law firms and their clients.

The combined company generates an excess of $200 million in annual run rate revenue. As a high-growth and profitable business, AffiniPay’s acquisition of MyCase will accelerate the adoption of digitization for payments and legal practice management software.

“We are very excited to announce AffiniPay’s acquisition of MyCase. Together, MyCase and LawPay are uniquely positioned to meet the holistic financial and business needs of law firms,” said Dru Armstrong, Chief Executive Officer at AffiniPay. “For over a decade, our respective clients have trusted us to deliver innovative legal solutions that enable them to succeed as professionals. As a legal market leader, we believe in putting the law firm and their clients first; together, we remain focused on innovation, customer experience and partner integrations to ensure our clients continue to thrive.”

The MyCase suite of legal practice management software solutions will now be integrated with LawPay’s market-leading payments platform, both designed exclusively to serve attorneys. Together, LawPay and MyCase will now serve over 65,000 law firms, with over 200,000 legal professionals across the United States and Canada.

“At MyCase, we ensure our law firms can focus on what matters – serving their clients. We know that every law firm is unique and deserves solutions that are easy to implement and use,” said Jim McGinnis, Chief Executive Officer at MyCase. “We continue to invest in MyCase with new capabilities like MyCase Drive, MyCase Accounting and in platforms like CasePeer for Personal Injury firms and Soluno for billing and accounting. We would like to thank Apax, who has partnered with us to help innovate and accelerate our growth and are excited to be joining forces with LawPay in this next chapter. Together, we will take our combined solutions to the next level.”

The LawPay and MyCase integrated product will lead the legal tech market with the most comprehensive platform, including:

• Quickest payment turnaround time with firms receiving funds up to 39% faster
• The easiest legal practice management platform: new firms are up and running in under three days utilizing free data migration, a 9.5/10 customer rating on ease of use, and users save up to three or more billable hours per day
• Only recommended payment solution in the industry by all 50 state bar associations
• Best- in- class Net Promoter Score in the legal technology industry
• Widest range of payment options (Buy Now Pay Later, mobile app, QR Code, card scanner, text-to-pay) in the legal technology industry.

Moving forward, the two legal technology leaders will join forces to create a unified platform topower the modern law firm for legal professionals. The merged company will continue investing and expanding both existing and new integrated partnerships to give law firms the best choice in legal services and technology.

TA Associates supported the acquisition of MyCase with additional investment capital, and will continue as the majority owner of the merged company. The funds advised by Apax and certain MyCase employees will become minority investors alongside AffiniPay’s founder, Amy Porter, and certain AffiniPay employees.

“TA is excited to welcome the Apax funds as a meaningful investor in the combined company and to partner with them and the AffiniPay and MyCase teams to build a market-leading legal and professional technology platform,” said Roy Burns, a managing director and co-head of TA’s North American financial services. “Each business is a growth and innovation leader in software and fintech, respectively, and we are thrilled to provide the resources for the company to continue delighting their clients,” added Clara Jackson, a director at TA Associates.

“We have been proud to partner with Jim and the team to build MyCase into one of the preeminent brands in legal tech,” Umang Kajaria, a partner at Apax, said. “Since its carve-out less than two years ago, MyCase has meaningfully accelerated its organic growth while also expanding through strategic acquisitions to help thousands of law firms run their practices efficiently. We are enthusiastic about the future of MyCase and are delighted to partner with AffiniPay and TA Associates to continue innovating and serving our law firm customers.”

AffiniPay advisors included Lazard and Goodwin Procter LLP. MyCase advisors included William Blair and Simpson Thatcher & Bartlett LLP.

3i Group plc (“3i”) today announces that it has agreed to invest in xSuite, a leading accounts payable process automation specialist focused on the SAP ecosystem. 3i will invest alongside the previous owners, funds advised by Pinova Capital GmbH (“PINOVA”) and the management team, who are reinvesting in the business as minority shareholders.

Headquartered in Ahrensburg / Hamburg, Germany, xSuite specialises in software applications for Accounts Payable Invoice Automation (“APIA”), which enable customers to digitalise, streamline and automate invoice processing, helping them to reduce costs, drive efficiencies, and improve quality.  More than 230 employees at corporate offices in Germany, Denmark, the Netherlands, Singapore, Slovakia, Spain and the US develop additional workflows and integration capabilities specific to the SAP ecosystem, where the company serves many of the most complex, global organisations and has strong technical expertise.

xSuite has a growing customer base of more than 1,200 clients in over 60 countries with best-in-class retention. Customer satisfaction is high given the company’s industry-leading technological capabilities, strong service levels, and the value delivered with its automation capabilities. xSuite historically specialised in the DACH region, but has a growing presence in the US where it has won several blue-chip clients such as Dole, Lionsgate and Crocs and is scaling rapidly.

The APIA market is growing. Forecasts expect a CAGR of over 10%, driven by the digitisation of workflows and a focus on reducing labour costs. Growth is also driven by increasing invoice volumes, adoption of automation solutions, expansion in the use of these solutions and the transition to specialist applications such as those of xSuite.

3i specialises in helping mid-market businesses internationalise and tap into new markets: With its global network of experts, 3i will support xSuite to build on its emerging presence in the US market and scale its North American operations. Together with 3i, xSuite will also focus on accelerating the transition to more subscription software revenues. 3i will also be able to help the xSuite team accelerate growth by leveraging commercial best-practices that it has implemented across other recent portfolio companies.

Ulf von Haacke, Head of Germany, Private Equity, 3i said: “We believe there is significant potential to further internationalise and develop xSuite in partnership with its experienced management team and its motivated and highly skilled employees. Following the recent successful exit of Magnitude and the co-investment in insightsoftware, our investment in xSuite illustrates 3i’s strong focus on enterprise software as a key pillar of our Business and Technology Services investment strategy. We are the ideal partner for mid-sized software companies that want to reach the next level such as xSuite.”

Joern Pelzer, Partner, PINOVA said: “Over the last years we have developed xSuite into a leading provider of software applications for APIA. The investment of 3i will allow xSuite to execute the envisaged North American growth plan even faster and create a leading player also in the North American market. We are happy to accompany xSuite’s further development together with 3i and the management team.”

Matthias Lemenkühler, CEO, xSuite said: “3i is a natural fit for us given their extensive experience of international growth strategies and their deep sector expertise. We are excited to be working with them to bring xSuite’s offering to a wider audience.”

 

-Ends-