November 2012
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Technology / Medtech / Internet / Digital Media / Telecoms / Cleantech
Monthly European TMT Private Investments and M&A Transactions Bulletin – November 2012
Published by Go4Venture Research, the Equity Research unit of Go4Venture Advisers LLP.
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Contents
This Month in Brief 3
Private Investments
1.1 - Headline Investment Index (HTI) 6
1.2 - Large Headline Investment Summary 7
1.3 - Large Headline Investment Profiles 8
M&A Transactions
2.1 - M&A Activity Index 16
2.2 - Top 5 Global TMT M&A Transactions Summary 17
Headline European VC & PE-Backed M&A Transactions:
2.3 - Summary 19
2.4 - Profiles 20
List of Acronyms 26
About this Bulletin
The Go4Venture Monthly European TMT Private Investments and M&A Transactions Bulletin provides a summary of corporate finance activity among emerging European TMT companies:
Private Investments, i.e. Venture Capital (VC) and Private Equity (PE) financings, including growth equity, financing rounds with single secondaries components (recapitalisations); and
M&A Transactions where the sellers are VC and PE-backed European companies, including all majority transactions with no new investment going into the business (e.g. acquisitions, MBOs and other buyouts).
Investment activity is measured using Go4Venture’s European Tech Headline Transactions Index (HTI), which is based on the number and value of transactions reported in professional publications.
M&A activity is measured using data from a combination of external sources, primarily Capital IQ, with complementary reporting from 451 Group and VentureSource.
Europe is defined as Western, Central and Eastern Europe, excluding Israel.
For more details, please refer to the Methodology Note available at www.go4venture.com/research/hti.htm.
Please note that no part of the Bulletin can be reproduced unless content is duly attributed to Go4Venture and the details of republishing are notified to [email protected].
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This Month in Brief
Dear Clients and Friends,
Welcome to the latest edition of the Go4Venture Monthly European TMT Bulletin, featuring our proprietary
Headline Transaction Index (HTI) of investment activity, as well as a quick summary of VC & PE-backed
TMT M&A exits of $50 million or more.
European Investment: Christmas is Coming!
Another month, and more progress on the funding landscape, but continuing disappointment on the exit
front. Overall the restructuring of the European venture market (for the better) is becoming clearer –
more in our End of Year Report Special Issue in January.
Investments
November 2012 has been yet again another month of progress. The momentum that we’ve seen building
since summer 2012 is gathering pace, with monthly numbers ahead by close to 40% in value compared to
the same month last year (20% by number of transactions). We are now at a 25% uplift year-to-date, both
in number and value, compared to 2011.
Once more, the month’s activity gives a great snapshot of the forces at work:
Larger transactions are becoming more common – Two landmark transactions (more than €20mn)
vs. only one last year (hence also the growing discrepancy between the increase in value and in
number of deals).
Late-stage is dominating the investment activity – Late-stage and Series C transactions represent
two thirds of the activity by value.
Internet is all there is, in its various guises – Internet services of all kinds, digital media pumped
through the web and mobile channels, and of course various SaaS plays, increasingly leveraging the
vast amount of data collected when servicing all connected users (“big data”). There is not much left
for the rest, with medtech and cleantech probably being the (much smaller) exceptions.
US investors are taking the lead in Europe – Of the eight Large HTI transactions profiled (> £5mn,
€7.5mn or $10mn), no less than 75% are led by a US investor. Interestingly these are not
necessarily VC funds (Benchmark Capital, Kleiner Perkins and Scale VP), but also private equity
(PE) and growth equity funds (Chernin Group, Goldman Sachs and SilverLake). In short, US
investors are using their financial firepower to elbow out local venture funds. The risk of
course is that Limited Partners (LPs)’ restrained (and that is a euphemism!) attitude towards
European funds perpetuates a situation of underperformance compared to their US peers.
Hopefully expected big European exits such as Huddle (Eden Ventures started it all), Just-Eat (Index),
Klarna (Atomico), MindCandy (Index and Spark), Shazam (DN Capital), Rovio (Atomico), or Wonga
(Balderton, Dawn Capital) will pop before LPs give up on European VC managers. In the meantime
European VC funds’ own fund-raising activity is rather modest and relates primarily to:
Regional and early-stage funds, because they are heavily subsidised (directly or indirectly via tax
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benefits for individual investors), or because the principals put up their own money (see the example
of Creathor Venture last month where management provided 20% of the €80mn). This month:
o Longwall Ventures was launched, targeting UK small businesses: this is a £40mn Enterprise
Capital Fund (ECF), of which £25mn (two thirds) is provided by the UK State.
o Viveris Management hit the first closing of its €80mn regional growth equity fund, targeting
companies in the South-East of France.
Growth Equity funds, such as Parcom Deutsche Private Equity (PDPE), which launched its second
€300mn growth equity fund. PDPE started in 2007 with the backing of Parcom Capital, the private
equity subsidiary of Dutch investment banking group ING.
Corporate Venture Capital (CVC) funds, such as Tate & Lyle which announced its second VC fund
to invest in food opportunities with £30mn set aside. This follows on from its £25mn initial fund
started in 2006.
Exits
Continuation of a theme: flat TMT M&A environment, globally and also for VC/PE-backed European TMT
deal activity.
Generally, the relentless consolidation of TMT remains unabated, for instance in:
Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) – RedPrairie (backed by PE firm New Mountain) continues to
scoop up smaller players, this time veteran mid-market ERP firm JDA Software (which itself had
absorbed the former Supply Chain Management (SCM) stars of the 1990s, Manugistics and i2
Technologies) for $1.7bn.
Internet Services, demonstrating the sector’s growing maturity – Acquisition of Kayak, a travel price
comparison engine, by Priceline, an online hotel reservations leader, for close to $1.5bn.
Communications Equipment, as a new generation of technologies challenges the established
players – Cisco buying Meraki, a cloud networking hardware provider, for close to $1bn.
For European VC/PE funds, a couple of transactions hit the €500mn mark (LMS International for €676mn
and Technolas Perfect Vision for €450mn, in application software and medtech respectively). There were
also a couple of smaller transactions around the €70mn level (Tikit and Star, both in services). In the case
of Technolas PV and Star, these are genuine successes of companies backed by European VC funds,
something worth noting given the rarity of such an occurrence.
Interestingly there were a couple of other large deals which were great successes of European
innovation but grown quite independently from VCs:
LMS International, a bootstrapped 1980 spin-off from the European University of Leuven, at times
supported by local VC fund GIMV which eventually sold their position in 2005 to PE fund NPM
Capital (which is getting the real upside).
Immoweb.de, picked up for €128mn by Axel Springer Digital Classifieds, the JV between Axel
Springer and General Atlantic. Immoweb was originally financed by Produpress, a publishing
business owned by the Rousseaux family.
By contrast, the majority of European VC-backed companies are discretely exited for an “undisclosed
amount” such as, this month, Human Inference (bought by Neopost), Memtum (sold to InfoVista),
Streamcore (acquired by Orsyp) or T-Vips (acquired by Nevion). Maybe this says more about the maturity
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of European VC funds than the strength of the European companies themselves. Some of the
European homeruns backed by US investors seems to confirms this thesis: in the process, European VC
investors are learning from their US brethren.
On this hopeful note, wishing all our readers a joyful Festive Holiday Season and a Prosperous New Year.
Enjoy the reading. Please direct any questions or comments to [email protected]. If you do not
wish to receive future HTI updates from us, please send an email with the title “unsubscribe” to
The Go4Venture Team
November 2012
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1.1 - Headline Investment Index (HTI)
November 2011 2012 Year-to-Date 2011 2012
Landmark Deals # 1 2 Landmark Deals # 23 33
€m 71.0 109.2 €m 1,036.3 1,249.2
Headline Deals # 5 6 Headline Deals # 56 72
€m 52.1 61.7 €m 625.0 841.6
Small Deals # 22 26 Small Deals # 225 275
€m 48.7 65.5 €m 649.3 778.3
All Deals # 28 34 All Deals # 304 380
€m 171.7 236.4 €m 2,310.6 2,869.1
0
50
100
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350
400
450
500
Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec
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(€m
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Go4Venture HTI Index by Deal Value
2009 2010
2011 2012
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Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec
To
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(€m
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Go4Venture HTI Index by Cumulative Deal Value
2009 2010
2011 2012
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1.2 - Large Headline Investment Summary
(>£5mn / €7.5mn / $10mn)
Company Sector Round €mn Description Investors
1 Spotify (Sweden) www.spotify.com
Digital Media
Late Stage
78.0 Provider of streamed music services both over the web and via smartphone apps.
Coca Cola, Fidelity Investments, Goldman Sachs.
2 Friedola Tech (Germany) www.friedola-tech.de
Cleantech Late Stage
31.3 Plastics recycling company which manufactures products for the automobile and logistics industry.
SilverLake Kraftwerk, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers.
3 Sensimed (Switzerland) www.sensimed.ch
Medical Technology
C 14.1 Developer of a non-invasive medical device for measuring intra-ocular pressure using a form of contact lens.
Agate Medical Investments, ELM Development, Sandoz Family Foundation, Vinci Capital, Wellington Partners.
4 Trademob (Germany) www.trademob.com
Internet Services
B 11.7 Developer and operator of a platform for advertising mobile apps.
Kennet Partners, Tengelmann Ventures, High-Tech Gründerfonds.
5 Datasift (UK) www.datasift.com
Internet Services
B 11.7 Provider of a real-time social data mining platform.
Daher Capital, Northgate Capital, Scale Venture Partners.
6 Neo Technology (Sweden) www.neotechnology.com
Software C* 8.6 Provider of an open source NoSQL graph database.
Conor Venture Partners, Fidelity Growth Partners Europe, Sunstone Capital.
7 Base79 (UK) www.base79.com
Digital Media
C 7.8 Provider of content management for companies and artists.
Chernin Group, MMC Ventures.
8 Elasticsearch (Netherlands) www.elasticsearch.org
Software A 7.8 Developer of big data search and analytics software.
Benchmark Capital, Data Collective, Individual Investors.
Source: Go4Venture
Key Bold indicates lead investor(s) * Internal round ** Led by existing investors
November 2012
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Company Sector Round €mn Description Investors
Spotify (Sweden) www.spotify.com
Digital Media
Late Stage
78.0 Provider of streamed music services both over the web and via smartphone apps.
Coca Cola, Fidelity Investments, Goldman Sachs.
Spotify (Luxembourg), a provider of streamed music services both over the web and via
smartphone apps, raised €78.0mn in a Late Stage round led by Goldman Sachs with
support from Coca-Cola and Fidelity Investments.
Well known music streaming service Spotify has appeared in our bulletin no less than three times – in
October 2008, August 2009 and July 2011. The last investment – a €69.0mn Series D round co-led by DST
Global and Kleiner Perkins Caufield and Byers in July 2011 – was intended to support roll-out in the US.
Since that time, the firm has launched in several new countries – Germany in March 2012, Australia and
New Zealand in May 2012 and, most recently, Poland, Ireland and Luxembourg in November, making it
active in 17 different countries. It has also diversified the platforms on which its service is available to
include, amongst others, Samsung Smart TVs and TiVo’s Digital Video Recorders (DVRs). The firm is also
developing a web version which, now that HTML5 renders so well on so many different devices, will further
increase the ease with which Spotify can be used across platforms. In a bid to reduce the cost of its
freemium business model, Spotify also reduced the amount of content it made available for free (but still has
to pay royalties for) around the time of its last investment round.
Based on these efforts, Spotify now has an 18mn song library and more than 15mn users, of which 4mn are
paying subscribers. This should be compared with fellow European competitor Deezer (see last month’s
bulletin) which has 26mn users, 2mn of which pay subscriptions. A significant contribution to the growth of
Deezer’s paying subscriber base came from bundling deals with telcos. In October 2012, Spotify signed a
similar agreement with Deutsche Telekom to provide unlimited music streaming to its mobile users.
The competitive landscape is however changing, with Microsoft and Apple working on their own streaming
services – Apple, for example is in discussions with record labels about adding a personalised digital radio
service to its iTunes download store, currently the biggest contributor to music companies’ digital revenues.
In addition, while the shares of American internet radio firm Pandora are trading at an all time low, with the
firm being criticised for the low level of royalties it pays artists, Pandora is lobbying Congress to pass the
Internet Radio Fairness Act, which would significantly reduce royalties for internet broadcasters. Whereas
Pandora paid 50% of its turnover in royalties last year, cable and satellite radio pay nothing.
This latest round values Spotify at c. €2.4bn – lower than the c. €3.1bn the firm sought but 3x higher than its
last funding round. Such a valuation puts Spotify in the premier league of private internet companies and
makes it one of the few European startups to rank on a par with Silicon Valley rock stars such as travel site
Airbnb, Twitter and payments company Square.
Transaction leader Goldman Sachs (€780mn (2007); €70bn AUM), Coca-Cola and Fidelity Investments
(€181bn AUM) are all well known. Coca-Cola, in particular, is well known in the music industry and has been
experimenting with digital music for some time. Coca-Cola signed a partnership with Spotify in April, which
included Spotify powering Coca-Cola’s music sites and Coca-Cola adding Spotify to its Facebook presence.
Coca-Cola also has previous experience in the digital music industry, having launched its own download
store (MyCokeMusic) in the UK and other countries in 2004. Yet, MyCokeMusic eventually closed in June
2006 largely due to issues arising from its use of Windows’ Digital Rights Management (DRM).
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Company Sector Round €mn Description Investors
Friedola Tech (Germany) www.friedola-tech.de
Cleantech Late Stage
31.3 Plastics recycling company which manufactures products for the automobile and logistics industry.
SilverLake Kraftwerk, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers.
Friedola Tech (Germany), a plastics recycling company which
manufactures products for the automobile and logistics industry,
raised $40.1mn (€31.3mn) in a Late Stage round from SilverLakeKraftWerk and Kleiner Perkins Caufield
& Byers. The money will be used to open a new manufacturing facility in South Carolina as well as for
further geographical expansion and development.
Friedola makes a range of plastic sheeting products, components for the automotive industry, packaging,
artificial leather and floor coverings, from recycled plastic. Its main product is Con-Pearl, a lightweight board
made of polypropylene, often used as floors in light commercial vehicles.
The firm last featured in our bulletin in July 2010 with an €11mn MBO financed by WHEB Partners. WHEB’s
motivation for the deal was that they thought Friedola was undervalued in the wake of the automotive
industry’s difficulties in 2008 and 2009.
Fortunately, the automotive industry began to recover in 2010 and with it, the fortunes of companies such as
Friedola which are an integral part of the supply chain. In line with plans at the time of its MBO, Friedola was
able to increase capacity to take advantage of this resurgent demand, growing sufficiently that WHEB is
believed to have doubled its money in just over two years.
The firm is now ready to expand in the US and expects to open a facility in South Carolina by early 2013 in
addition to its three existing facilities in Germany. This new plant will open in stages with a manufacturing
line starting by 2014.
This is a secondary transaction with US investment firm SilverLake KraftWerk (€270mn (2011); €11bn AUM)
buying a majority stake from WHEB Partners. WHEB will maintain a minority interest. Fellow existing investor
Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers (€780mn (2011); €2.7bn AUM), which co-led the transaction alongside
SilverLake, is increasing its stake.
SilverLake Kraftwerk (SLK) is a joint initiative between California-based technology investor Silverlake and
Soros Fund Management, set up in 2011. SLK aims to provide growth capital to late-stage innovators in the
energy and resource sectors. SLK operates from SilverLake’s Silicon Valley offices, but has always had a
global mandate. This is SLK’s first investment outside of the US.
Strategically, SLK is looking to plug a gap in the cleantech investment market. While there is no shortage of
funds prepared to invest in earlier stage cleantech opportunities, there are relatively few investors prepared
to provide growth equity. With cleantech having been very much in vogue for the last half decade, there is an
increasing number of cleantech businesses mature enough to need larger late-stage rounds.
Even better known than Silver Lake is fellow Silicon Valley investor Kleiner Perkins Caufield and Byers
(KPCB). One of KPCB’s target sectors is what it calls Greentech. Not only has KPCB been venturing in the
cleantech space since 1999 with over 60 investments racked up by its Greentech fund, but in 2008 KPCB
established a c. €780mn Green Growth Fund (GGF) to support later-stage cleantech businesses. Other
recent investments by the fund include Enphase Energy, OPOWER and Silver Spring Networks.
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Company Sector Round €mn Description Investors
Sensimed (Switzerland) www.sensimed.ch
Medical Technology
C 14.1 Developer of a non-invasive medical device for measuring intra-ocular pressure using a form of contact lens.
Agate Medical Investments, ELM Development, Sandoz Family Foundation, Vinci Capital, Wellington Partners.
Sensimed (Switzerland), the developer of a non-invasive medical device
for measuring intra-ocular pressure using a form of contact lens, raised
CHF17mn (€14.1mn) in a Series C round co-led by Agate Medical Investments, Vinci Capital and
Wellington Partners with support from existing investors ELM Development, the Sandoz Family
Foundation and medical industry angels. The money will be used to finalise approval in the US and China
Founded in 2003 as a spin-out from the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), Sensimed has
developed a system for measuring intra-ocular pressure (IOP) called Triggerfish®. Based on a soft contact
lens, the system is entirely non-invasive. By using a supplementary antenna worn around the eye-socket and
technology very similar to that used in radio-frequency identification (RFID) devices, Sensimed’s telemetry
system broadcasts measurements of pressure inside the eyeball to a recording device worn by the patient.
This can provide a continuous measurement of IOP for up to 24 hours as the subject goes about their
everyday life.
Conventional ocular tonometry – the measurement of IOP – uses a wide variety of devices from the familiar
air-puff tonometers used by most regular opticians through to Goldmann tonometry which uses a prism
placed against the cornea. Unlike conventional tonometry systems, Sensimed’s Triggerfish® can provide
continuous monitoring during sleep and normal activities outside a clinical environment. This allows the
detection of the dynamic intra-ocular pressure changes responsible for optic nerve damage.
The primary use is for patients susceptible to glaucoma. While this currently affects about 4% of the
population over 40 years of age, one of the predisposing factors for the onset of glaucoma is diabetes. Type
2 diabetes – a metabolic disease usually appearing relatively late in life and accounting for about 90% of all
diabetes cases – has a global prevalence of just over 5% but this is forecast to rise to over 6% by 2025.
Although to date the use of Sensimed’s device has primarily been in trials, the firm has now negotiated a
number of distribution agreements. In particular, in January 2012 the firm signed agreements in Ireland,
Portugal, Spain and the UK, with agreements for Australia and Canada following in February. The product is
not yet approved for sale in the US.
Israeli medical technology investor Agate Medical Investments (€25mn (2012)) was founded in 2007 by
Dani Naveh, Israel’s former Minister of Health. Its Agate I fund provides growth capital and buy-out finance to
medical device and healthcare services companies.
Swiss private equity firm Vinci Capital (€70mn (2009); €125mn AUM) was founded in 2003. The firm only
invests in Switzerland – preferring to be near enough to its investments to play an active role – but does
invest across a wide range of industrial and technology-based businesses.
Wellington Partners (€265mn (2008); €800mn AUM), which is well known to our readers, last appeared in
our bulletin in May 2012 with a €19mn investment for online restaurant reservation business Livebookings. In
September 2012 Wellington announced the first closing (at €70mn) of their second dedicated life sciences
fund targeted at €120mn. This follows their first life sciences fund which closed at €80mn in 2007.
The transaction leaders were joined by existing investors ELM Development and the Sandoz Family
Foundation, a family office whose money came from founding Novartis. The Foundation invests in the
pharmaceutical, agribusiness, hotel trade, watch, telecommunications and media industries.
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Company Sector Round €mn Description Investors
Trademob (Germany) www.trademob.com
Internet Services
B 11.7 Developer and operator of a platform for advertising mobile apps.
Kennet Partners, Tengelmann Ventures, High-Tech Gründerfonds.
Trademob (Germany), the developer and operator of a platform
for advertising mobile apps, raised $15mn (€11.7mn) in a Series
B round led by Kennet Partners with support from existing
investors High-Tech Gründerfonds and Tengelmann Ventures. The money will be used for expansion in
New York and elsewhere, as well as for continuing R&D.
Founded in 2010 in Berlin, Trademob helps developers of apps for Android and iOS™ smartphones to
advertise their product using its proprietary platform. Clients using Trademob to promote their mobile apps
include Axel Springer, eBay Classifieds, Universal Music and Wooga.
To use Trademob, all app developers need to do is include a single tracking code in their app. This
aggregates over a hundred different ad networks – including well known brands such as Admob, Appticker,
Inmobi, Millenia Media and Smaato – into a single point of contact with only one tracking code. This
combined network can reach over 500mn mobile users.
Trademob provides detailed reporting to facilitate campaign optimisation. Courtesy of Trademob’s
proprietary tracking technology, statistics can be broken down into Cost Per Click (CPC), cost-per-download
and Cost Per Action (CPA), where the action in question is typically registrations or in-app purchases. Fully
compliant with the latest EU privacy guidelines on collecting personal data, no personal data is stored but by
using Trademob’s ‘fingerprinting’ technology, users can still be tracked with 95% reliability which is sufficient
for optimising ad campaigns.
Since going live with its advertising service in November 2011, the firm has shown double-digit revenue
growth on a monthly basis and grown to having offices in London, Madrid and Paris.
Well known growth capital investor Kennet Partners (€200mn (2008); €360mn AUM) has a presence in both
London and Silicon Valley but has been relatively inactive in the European technology sector for the last
couple of years. Kennet last appeared in our bulletin in April 2009 with a €15mn investment in members-only
shopping club BuyVIP.
The firm has, however, made a number of investments in the US and scored a number of high profile exits.
These include the sale of Brussels-based compliance software firm FRSGlobal to Wolters Kluwer Financial
Services in September 2010, BuyVIP to Amazon in October 2010, goviral to AOL for c. €76mn in January
2011, as well as Sequans Communications, which was covered in our July 2006 issue and IPO’d on the
NYSE in May 2011 at a market cap of c. €285mn.
As ever, Kennet targets fast-growing technology, services and digital media businesses across Europe and
North America with revenues of at least €800k per quarter. Investment sizes are normally between €8-
€800mn. In this round, Kennet is contributing c. €9.7mn of the whole.
Early stage technology investor High-Tech Gründerfonds (€290mn (2011); €565mn AUM) has been
financing German start-ups since 2005. Targeting companies with a turnover of less than €8mn and fewer
than 50 employees, the firm has contributed regularly to our proprietary Headline Transactions Index.
Readers will remember Tengelmann Ventures from its investment in Sumup in our August issue.
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Company Sector Round €mn Description Investors
Datasift (UK) www.datasift.com
Internet Services
B 11.7 Provider of a real-time social data mining platform.
Daher Capital, Northgate Capital, Scale Venture Partners.
DataSift (UK), developer of a platform for monitoring and analysing social media,
blog and other content, raised $15mn (€11.7mn) in a Series C round led by Scale
Venture Partners with support from Daher Capital and Northgate Capital.
Founded in Reading in 2010, DataSift has developed a platform which allows marketing and advertising
executives to monitor the impact of their campaigns through social media by aggregating statistical
information from a wide range of social media data sources. Data sources that can be scanned include a
variety of public sources such as Amazon, bitly, facebook, flickr, twitter, Wikipedia and Wordpress as well as
private sources such as corporate intranets.
Effectively, marketers are able to listen in on the world’s conversations and ask questions such as what their
customers are saying about their brands in a particular region, or what voters think of a particular political
party in the run up to an election.
DataSift’s service is sold on a monthly subscription basis. This is tiered from Bronze at c. €2,300/month to
Platinum at c. €11,700/month with each level of subscription entitled to a fixed amount of data processing
each month and support in line with subscription package.
Since its launch in 2011, DataSift has grown at a brisk pace and now has 300 corporate customers – up from
only 200 a quarter ago. Even if all their customers were using their basic package this would give the firm a
turnover well in excess of €8mn. Customers include Fortune 500 companies, news organizations, consulting
companies and government agencies.
In addition to its Reading headquarters, the firm opened an office in San Francisco on the back of a Series B
investment of c. €10mn from GRP Partners and IA Venture Partners in 2011, and also has offices in New
York and Chicago.
Transaction leader Scale Venture Partners (€175mn (2009); €700mn AUM) last appeared in our bulletin in
March 2009 with a €10mn investment in online security-as-a-service firm Scansafe. Currently investing from
its third fund, California-based Scale targets mid-stage cloud, internet, mobile and Software as a Service
(SaaS) investments although it will also invest in healthcare and MEMS (Micro Electro Mechanical Systems).
Deal sizes can be anywhere between €2.5-15mn but typically average around €10mn over the life-time of an
investment. Of particular relevance to this deal will be Scale’s previous experience with cloud-based content
management company Box, e-mail and interactive marketing firm ExactTarget, internet marketing company
HubSpot and social media publishing software firm Vitrue.
Daher Capital is a family office based in Beirut, run by Lebanese entrepreneur Michel Daher.
Global investor Northgate (€135mn (2006); €2.4bn AUM) maintains offices in Hong Kong, India and Mexico
as well as in the UK and the US. It invests primarily in private equity and venture capital funds but will also
make direct co-investments alongside a small number of trusted partners.
November 2012
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Company Sector Round €mn Description Investors
Neo Technology (Sweden) www.neotechnology.com
Software C* 8.6 Provider of an open source NoSQL graph database.
Conor Venture Partners, Fidelity Growth Partners Europe, Sunstone Capital.
Neo Technology (Sweden), the developer of an open source NoSQL
graph database, raised $11.0mn (€8.6mn) in an internal Series C round
led by Sunstone Capital with support from fellow existing investors
Conor Venture Partners and Fidelity Growth Partners Europe. The money will be used to support the
firm’s expanding customer base and for further product development.
We last saw Neo Technology in September 2011 with a €7.7mn round from the same investors. In that write
up, we described NoSQL databases, their relevance to the ‘Big Data’ increasingly generated by e-commerce
and their advantages over conventional relational databases for certain types of distributed data sets.
Apart from additional developers, the money from the 2011 round was used to hire sales staff. As a result,
2012 revenues are more than three times greater than those for 2011. Perhaps more importantly, when we
last covered Neo Technology they had only one enterprise level customer – Cisco. They now have more
than twenty clients in the Fortune Global 2000 and their database is used by a number of hot start-ups
including MoviePilot, Squidoo and Viadeo. Like so many European start-ups, Neo Technology is now
headquartered in California, but to support its growing customer base, the firm also has offices in Belgium,
France, Germany, Malaysia, Sweden and the UK.
Neo Technology operates on a freemium basis with its software freely available under an open source
General Public License (GPL). Clients can buy basic support and a management console for an annual
subscription of €6,000 and cluster-based failover, an integrated backup system and 24/7 telephone support
for an additional €18,000.
Neo Technology is not short of competitors in this emerging market. 451 Research recently conducted an
informal study using the frequency with which different graph databases were mentioned on the LinkedIn
profiles of developers as a proxy for market share. Mongo was the clear leader with CouchDB, HBase and
Redis all haggling for second place. Not too far behind them lie Appache’s Cassandra, Neo4j and Riak.
We note, however, that this study was informal. In particular, it may bear no resemblance to the revenue
streams of these various databases. Moreover, the anecdotal evidence cited by Neo Technology suggests
that the competition they most often run into in pitches to enterprise customers is either Oracle RAC or a
home-grown solution, implying that Neo Technology has superior traction amongst enterprise customers.
This internal round brings the total raised by Neo Technology to €18mn. The round was led by life science
and technology investor Sunstone Capital (€180mn (2008); €535mn AUM) rather than Fidelity Growth
Partners Europe (FGPE) (€125mn (2010); €710mn AUM) which led the Series B investment. As the original
investor, Conor Venture Partners (€50mn (2010)) has followed through on its initial investment across all
three rounds.
Since the last round, Sunstone closed an €85m early stage investment fund in December 2011. FGPE has
had a particularly busy year having made two investments which have featured in our bulletin (StylistPick in
February and Notonthehighstreet in May) as well as a smaller investment of c. €4.5mn which the firm led in
online health and beauty marketplace Wahanda. FGPE has also made two notable exits having sold
NewBay to RIM and Cúram to IBM.
November 2012
Page 14 © Go4Venture 2012
Company Sector Round €mn Description Investors
Base79 (UK) www.base79.com
Digital Media
C 7.8 Provider of content management for companies and artists.
Chernin Group, MMC Ventures.
Base79 (UK), a licenser and distributor of online video content, raised $10.0mn
(€7.8mn) in a Series C round led by new investor Chernin Group with support from
existing investor MMC Ventures. The money will be used for further development and
expansion and in particular to build owned-and-operated channels and brands.
Founded in 2007, Base79 was originally known as Myvideorights. The company has developed a Digital
Rights Management (DRM) technology platform and has built up numerous industry relationships with
advertisers, helping content owners to monetise their digital media assets.
Practically, this means that the firm delivers value to three groups of people:
Producers and production companies, such as BBC Worldwide, IMG Media, Simon Cowell’s SyCo, The
History Channel and Guiness World Records, can use Base79 to manage their distribution, confident that
their content will be protected by the firm’s DRM platform.
Advertisers can use Base79’s audience demographics analysis to optimise the placement of their
campaigns amongst over 550mn monthly video views across more than 550 channels.
For over 250 digital media channels, Base79 can guarantee officially licensed high quality content from a
library of over two million videos. The firm has a particularly close relationship with YouTube, for which it
operates the largest YouTube network in the EMEA region.
Effectively, the firm is operating as a form of ad network for video content. Significantly, however, from the
outset Base79 is going for not just the traditional internet advertising market but for digital media on any
platform including tablets, connected televisions and smartphones.
Base79 already has offices in London, New York and Sydney and plans to expand its Continental European
presence over the next twelve months.
Transaction leader the Chernin Group is a media holding company based in Los Angeles. It was founded in
2009 by Peter Chernin – Rupert Murdoch’s former second in command at News Corp. As a strategic
investor, the group not only invests in digital media and related companies, but it is also a developer of
premium content. Given that the majority of growth remaining in the content industry is outside the US, the
group is particularly interested in opportunities in emerging markets in general, and Asia in particular.
In April 2012, Providence Equity Partners and a small number of other undisclosed investors, bought a
minority stake in the Chernin Group which gave the group an estimated €150mn to invest. Previous
investments have included c. €8mn for social magazine Flipboard in July 2010, c. €65mn for mixed media
blogging company Tumblr in September 2011, and c. €8mn for social app developer Scopely in September
2012. Base79 is the Group’s first investment outside of North America.
Founded in 2000, existing investor MMC Ventures (€40mn (2012); €125mn AUM) focuses on technology-
enabled sectors, including financial and business services, business software, digital media and e-
commerce. Having raised a total of c. €125mn, MMC aims to invest around c. €12.5mn a year. Its existing
portfolio includes Alex and Alexa, Interactive Investor, Knowledge Mill, LoveHomeSwap and Reevoo.
November 2012
Page 15 © Go4Venture 2012
Company Sector Round €mn Description Investors
Elasticsearch (Netherlands) www.elasticsearch.org
Software A 7.8 Developer of big data search and analytics software.
Benchmark Capital, Data Collective, Individual Investors.
Elasticsearch (Netherlands), the developer of a search engine for
unstructured data in a cloud environment, raised $10.0mn (€7.8mn) in a
Series A round led by Benchmark Capital with participation by the Data
Collective. The money will be used for new hires to build out the company in all functions.
Elasticsearch is the third company in this bulletin to be tackling issues relating to so-called ‘big data.’ The
problem Elasticsearch aims to solve is that, while there are many ways to store large unstructured data-sets,
there aren’t yet many ways to search them, particularly in real time. The firm has therefore developed an
open source search engine built for a distributed cloud environment.
Technically, Elasticsearch’s tool is based on the open source information retrieval software library called
Lucene and released under the Apache Software License. This has indexing and search capabilities but no
crawling or hypertext parsing. It assumes that the software architecture of the environment it is searching
conforms to the de facto standard known as REST (Representational State Transfer) and consists of well-
behaved clients and servers. Elasticsearch’s technology assumes no particular schema for the data it
processes but works particularly well with documents based on the text-based open standard known as
JSON (JavaScript Object Notation).
The point about this is that Elasticsearch’s technology is optimised not just for performance but also for ease
of development, which means that developers prefer it for new applications. First released in 2009, the open
source product has been downloaded over one and a half million times. The current download rate is about
200,000 a month.
To date Elasticsearch has been more of a development team rather than a commercial company. This
investment will allow it to build up the other functions that a commercial company needs. The round was led
by well known Silicon Valley investor Benchmark Capital (€325mn (2008); €2.3bn AUM). Benchmark is well
known for having invested in mySQL, RedHat and SpringSource.
Data Collective (€8mn (2010)) is a two year old venture capital specialising purely in Big Data investments.
Based in San Francisco, for the past two years the firm has been quietly investing a fund of a little under
€8mn in a portfolio of just under 50 early stage big data companies. Its better known portfolio companies
include Apcera, Citus Data, Cloudability, Continuuity, Kaggle, MemSQL, Meteor, MongoHQ, Parse, Piston
Cloud and Keen.io. Data Collective is particularly strong operationally and technically. While most venture
capital firms have some level of operational experience at least in a business context, Data Collective
considers it a matter of pride that some of its team still read code.
Alongside the two institutional investors, Elasticsearch also received investment from Rod Johnson, the
creator of Spring (the application development framework for enterprise Java) and co-founder of
SpringSource, a provider of enterprise Java application development tools, which was acquired by VMware
for c. €327mn in August 2009.
November 2012
Page 16 © Go4Venture 2012
2.1 - M&A Activity Index
0
5,000
10,000
15,000
20,000
25,000
30,000
35,000
0
100
200
300
400
500
600
Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec
De
al V
alu
e p
er
Mo
nth
(€m
n)
# o
f De
als
pe
r M
on
th
Disclosed Global & European TMT M&A Transactions
European Deals 2011 (€mn) European Deals 2012 (€mn)
Global Deals 2011 (€mn) Global Deals 2012 (€mn)
# of Global Deals 2011 # of Global Deals 2012
Source: Capital IQ; Go4Venture AnalysisSource: Capital IQ; Go4Venture AnalysisSource: Capital IQ; Go4Venture AnalysisSource: Capital IQ; Go4Venture Analysis
0
500
1,000
1,500
2,000
2,500
3,000
3,500
4,000
4,500
0
2
4
6
8
10
12
14
16
18
20
Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec
De
al V
alu
e p
er
Mo
nth
(€m
n)
# o
f De
als
pe
r M
on
th
Disclosed European VC & PE-Backed TMT M&A Transactions
Value of Deals 2011 (€mn)
Value of Deals 2012 (€mn)
# of Deals 2011
# of Deals 2012
Source: Capital IQ, The 451 Group, VentureSource (including transaction value estimates); Go4Venture Analysis(1) Includes NDS acquisition by Cisco Systems for €3.8bn
(2) Excludes Skype acquisition by Microsoft, but includes Landis+Gyr acquisition by Toshiba for €1.8bn(3) Includes Elster acquisition by Melrose for €2.3bn
(2)
>£30mn / €35mn / $50mn
(1) (3)
Disclosed European VC & PE-Backed TMT M&A Transactions (2012)
> £30mn / €35mn / $50mn
Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec
Monthly Number # 3 2 3 2 4 3 5 6 3 3 4
Value €mn 159 1,117 4,459 398 372 2,553 1,412 511 895 319 1,270
Median €mn 54 558 623 199 89 210 150 65 322 69 263
Cum. Number # 3 5 8 10 14 17 22 28 31 34 38
Value €mn 159 1,275 5,734 6,133 6,505 9,058 10,469 10,980 11,875 12,194 13,464
Median €mn 54 60 205 199 135 153 152 127 121 118 105
November 2012
Page 17 © Go4Venture 2012
2.2 - Top 5 Global TMT M&A Transactions Summary
Ranked by Price (€mn) in descending order (includes announced and/or completed deals)
# Target & Acquirer Target Sector Price (€mn)
Rev. (€mn) P/R Noteworthy Sellers
1 Invensys Rail (UK) www.invensysrail.com Siemens (Germany DB:SIE) www.siemens.com
Application Software
2,172 965 2.3x Invensys Group.
Siemens, a global electronics and electrical engineering conglomerate, will acquire Invensys Rail, a provider of software-based signalling, communication and control systems for the rail industry. Formed in 2001, Invensys Rail provides solutions for the automation of train operations, signalling solutions, control centres to supervise and manage rail networks, as well as related products (e.g. crossings, track circuits etc.), both for the mainline and mass transit rail markets. Invensys Rail is a subsidiary of Invensys Group, a global supplier of software, safety systems and equipment to multiple industries (e.g. rail industry, biotechnology, oil and gas etc.) and in 2012 it generated 31% of the Group's revenues. Through the acquisition of Invensys Rail, which will be integrated into the Infrastructure and Cities unit, Siemens expects to bolster its rail automation business through combining the Communication-Based Train Control (CBTC) solutions of both companies and extending its presence in European countries (e.g. Germany, Austria etc.), China and India. Invensys Group plans to focus exclusively on developing industrial software, systems and control equipments through its remaining subsidiaries Invensys Operation Management (50% of Group's revenues) and Invensys Control (19% of Group's revenues).
2 JDA Software (US Nasdaq:JDAS) www.jda.com RedPrairie (US) www.redprairie.com
Application Software
1,725 539 3.2x -
RedPrairie, a warehousing, workforce management, retail and e-commerce technology provider, which has been owned by the private equity firm New Mountain Capital since 2010, will take private JDA Software, a provider of supply chain, merchandising and pricing solutions. Founded in 1985, JDA started as a provider of retail point of sale and merchandising solutions and strengthened its positioning as a supply chain planning vendor through a series of acquisitions, including supply chain management (SCM) providers Manugistics (c.€302mn, April 2006) and i2 Technologies (c.€415mn, November 2009). The combination of JDA and RedPrairie is expected to offer retailers and manufacturers a complete portfolio of solutions and services to manage global supply chains (from raw materials, to finished products, to consumers through any channel), while creating an entity with over €750mn in revenues. The acquisition of JDA will strengthen RedPrairie's position in the SCM market, which according to Gartner is expected to grow from c. €4.8bn in 2009 to c.€6.8bn by 2014, and will allow it to compete better against industry leaders Oracle and SAP.
3 Kayak (US NasdaqGM:KYAK) www.kayak.com Priceline.com (US NasdaqGS:PCLN) www.priceline.com
Internet Services
1,409 175 8.1x Accel, General Catalyst, IVP, North Sky Capital, OAK Investment Partners, Sequoia, Tenaya Capital, Time Warner Investments, Trident Capital.
Priceline.com, an online travel agency, will acquire Kayak, a travel search engine. Launched in 2005 and floated in July 2012, Kayak is an engine used to search for price and availability of flights, hotels, car rentals and other travel-related services across numerous websites, including those of airlines and of other travel agencies (e.g. Expedia, eDreams etc.). Having received over €150mn in venture funding, the company has experienced rapid growth in terms of revenues; from c.€88mn in 2009 to c.€133mn in 2010, to c.€175mn in 2011. Kayak is by far priceline.com's largest acquisition, followed by the acquisition of the online hotel booking agencies Active Hotels (c.€125mn, September 2004), Bookings.com (c.€100mn, July 2005) and Agoda.com (c.€12mn in cash plus c.€110mn in incentives, November 2007). While Kayak will increase priceline.com's annual revenues by only 5-6%, it is expected to significantly strengthen its customer base, expand its offering and, most importantly, add technology capabilities to its platform. The two companies will continue operating independently after the completion of the deal.
November 2012
Page 18 © Go4Venture 2012
# Target & Acquirer Target Sector Price (€mn)
Rev. (€mn) P/R Noteworthy Sellers
4 WBL (Singapore SGX:W01) www.wearnes.com Straits Trading Company (Singapore SGX:S20) www.stc.com.sg
Semiconductors 1,329* 1,551 0.9x -
*Straits acquired 79% of WBL for €1,050mn implying an enterprise value of €1,329mn. Straits Trading Company (Straits), a mining and real estate company, will acquire 79% of WBL (doing business as Wearnes), a conglomerate operating in the automotive, property, electronics and engineering industries, as well as providing manufacturing and distribution services. WBL's technology division, representing 58% of 2011 revenues, is mainly comprised of MFLEX and MFS, two publically traded companies which WBL controls. MFLEX provides flexible printed circuits and electronic component manufacturing services whilst MFS provides design and engineering fabrication capabilities to produce flexible circuits and rigid printed circuit boards for clients. Founded in 1902, WBL is based in Singapore. Straits reported in its acquisition prospectus that it felt WBL was reasonably priced and poised for future growth. Furthermore, as the proposed acquisition consideration is issued stock, the deal will result in minimal cash outlay and will broaden Straits' shareholder base.
5 Meraki (US) www.meraki.com Cisco (US Nasdaq:CSCO) www.cisco.com
Communications Equipment
935 N/A N/A DAG Ventures, Felicis Ventures, Northgate Capital, Sequoia Capital.
Cisco, an enterprise networking and communications technology provider, will acquire Meraki, a cloud networking hardware provider. Meraki provides hardware and management software that enables cloud-based networking: wi-fi routers, ethernet switches and physical security devices that can be configured into automated and simple enterprise networks, fully controllable from the cloud, thereby facilitating network management. Meraki was founded in 2006 by three PhD students at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and moved to San Francisco shortly thereafter. Over the past year, it has achieved a €78mn bookings run rate and has grown from 120 to 330 staff. During this year, Cisco has made ten acquisitions worth €5.2bn, of which Meraki is the second largest after the acquisition of video software provider NDS for €3.9bn in June. The acquisition of Meraki further expands Cisco's hardware offering while providing new R&D opportunities and potential market coverage outside of the US. Meraki will operate as the core of Cisco's new Cloud Networking Group, maintaining its location in San Francisco. Further, Cisco stands to benefit from Meraki's cloud technology by adding similar functionality to its other hardware.
Source: Capital IQ, The 451 Group; Go4Venture Analysis
Key Bold indicates name of Target Italic indicates name of Acquirer P/R – Price / Last 12 Months Revenues
November 2012
Page 19 © Go4Venture 2012
2.3 - Headline European VC & PE-Backed M&A Transactions
Where transaction value is available (>£30mn / €35mn / $50mn), includes announced and/or completed deals
Sorted by Price (€mn) when available descending order
# Target & Acquirer Target Sector
Price (€mn)
LTM Rev.
(€mn) P/R Funding
(€mn) P/F Noteworthy Sellers 1 LMS International (Belgium)
www.lmsintl.com Siemens (Germany DB:SIE) www.siemens.com
Application Software
676 162 4.2x N/A N/A NPM Capital.
2 Technolas Perfect Vision (Germany) www.technolaspv.com Bausch + Lomb (US) www.bausch.com
Medical Technology
450 N/A N/A 43 10.9x Entrepreneurs Fund, HealthCap, IBG, Innoven Partenaires, NBGI Ventures.
3 Tikit Group (UK AIM:TIK) www.tikit.com BT (UK) www.bt.com
IT Services & Distribution
76 33 2.3x N/A N/A Mobeus Equity Partners, NVM Private Equity, YFM Equity Partners.
4 Star (UK) www.star.co.uk Claranet (UK) www.claranet.co.uk
Internet Services
68 62 1.1x 19 3.7x Notion Capital.
Source: Capital IQ, The 451 Group, VentureSource; Go4Venture Analysis
Key Bold indicates name of Target P/R – Price / Last 12 Months Revenues Italic indicates name of Acquirer P/F – Price / Total Funding P/F>1x indicates an investment where all investors have made a positive return on their investment. P/F<1x indicates poor returns for some, but early or late investor entrants may still show a positive return on their investment.
November 2012
Page 20 © Go4Venture 2012
# Target & Acquirer Target Sector
Price (€mn)
LTM Rev.
(€mn) P/R Funding
(€mn) P/F Noteworthy Sellers
1 LMS International (Belgium) www.lmsintl.com Siemens (Germany DB:SIE) www.siemens.com
Application Software
676 162 4.2x N/A N/A NPM Capital.
Source: Capital IQ, The 451 Group, VentureSource; Go4Venture Analysis
LMS International (Belgium), a technology simulation software and consultancy company, will be acquired
by Siemens (DB:SIE) for €676mn in cash. The primary private equity seller is NPM Capital, the private
equity arm of SHV Holdings, a Dutch energy and industrial conglomerate.
Belgium-based LMS International provides mechatronic simulation solutions
and consulting to engineering firms worldwide. LMS’s offerings include
simulation software, testing systems and engineering services that help clients
test new products and components for mechanical attributes including system
dynamics, structural integrity, sound quality, durability, safety, power
consumption etc. LMS mainly serves the automotive, aerospace, energy and
advanced manufacturing industries, with 5,000 clients including most Fortune 500 top automotive and
aeronautical manufacturers. Founded in 1980 as a spin-out from the University of Leuven, LMS has over
1,250 employees. NPM Capital became involved in 2005, when it acquired 16% of LMS from GIMV’s 25%
stake. GIMV, an investor in LMS since 1991, sold its remaining shares to LMS’s management.
Founded in 1847, Siemens is a global electronics and electrical engineering
conglomerate, employing 370,000 people across four main business units:
Energy, Healthcare, Industry and Infrastructure & Cities. Siemens makes
frequent acquisitions to support its policy of capital-efficient revenue growth
beyond that of its competitors. It also features in the Top 5 Global TMT M&A
Transactions Summary table this month, acquiring Invensys Rail for €2.2bn.
LMS will be integrated into Siemens’ Industry Automation Division (part of the Industry unit that overall
represents 26% of 2012 revenues), under the product lifecycle management software portfolio that is used
by over 70,000 companies. The acquisition expands Siemens’ portfolio of industry software, strengthening its
coverage of the value-added process for product development and production, allowing customers to
simulate, test, optimise and produce their products in a unified, consistent data environment. Within 2012,
Siemens Industry Automation Division completed several acquisitions, including that of quality and
production management software supplier IBS (c. €40mn), cost management software provider Perfect
Costing Solutions and 3D system visualisation software provider VRcontext for undisclosed amounts.
NPM Capital (€1bn AUM), is a Dutch private equity firm focused on management buyouts (MBOs), as well
as growth and recapitalisations for companies in Benelux. Following a 2000 acquisition for €1.4bn it became
the private equity arm of SHV Holdings, a Dutch family-owned business with global activities in the energy,
raw-material distribution and retail industries. NPM seeks to take substantial minority stakes, typically
investing between €20-200mn in companies with enterprise values of €50-500mn. It currently holds over 25
investments in the food, e-commerce, energy and healthcare sectors. NPM last featured in our February
2012 bulletin with an investment in bol.com, an online retailer of books and entertainment products.
November 2012
Page 21 © Go4Venture 2012
# Target & Acquirer Target Sector
Price (€mn)
LTM Rev.
(€mn) P/R Funding
(€mn) P/F Noteworthy Sellers
2 Technolas Perfect Vision (Germany) www.technolaspv.com Bausch + Lomb (US) www.bausch.com
Medical Technology
450 N/A N/A 41 10.9x Entrepreneurs Fund, HealthCap, IBG, Innoven Partenaires, NBGI Ventures.
Source: Capital IQ, The 451 Group, VentureSource; Go4Venture Analysis
Technolas Perfect Vision (Germany), a laser-based ophthalmologic procedure development company, will
be acquired by Bausch + Lomb (US). Technolas Perfect Vision (TPV) was formed in 2009 as a 50:50 joint
venture between 20/10 Perfect Vision Operations and Bausch + Lomb. Following the achievement of agreed
milestones and earnouts, such as the marketing approval of its femtosecond laser technology from
regulatory authorities in Europe and the US, Bausch + Lomb will exercise its option of purchasing 20/10
Perfect Vision Operations’ 50% stake, in a deal valuing the company at up to €450mn. The primary sellers
include Entrepreneurs Fund, HealthCap, IBG, Innoven Partenaires and NBGI Ventures, who invested in
20/10 Perfect Vision through its October 2007 and September 2008 funding rounds.
TPV offers workstations used in a range of ocular procedures including laser
cataract and presbyopia surgeries. It develops breakthrough technologies
which facilitate and enhance the effectiveness of these procedures including
VICTUSTM, the first femtosecond laser to support cataract and corneal
procedures on a single platform, and ZYOPTIX® Advanced Control Eyetracking
(ACETM) Technology, a dynamic rotational eyetracking system that enables iris
recognition throughout the surgery process. Germany-based TPV has additional offices in the US and
Singapore and employs around 200 professionals. NBGI Ventures became involved when it led 20/10
Perfect Vision’s October 2007 funding round of €13.5mn through its NBGI Technology II Fund, accompanied
by IBG and existing backers Innoven Partenaires and Entrepreneurs Fund. NBGI also participated in the
following round of €7.5mn in September 2008, along with lead investor HealthCap and existing investors
IBG, Innoven Partennaires and Entrepreneurs Fund.
Founded in 1853, New York-based Bausch + Lomb is a worldwide supplier of
eye health products. While today its core products include contact lenses, lens
care products and ophthalmic devices for cataract and presbyopia surgeries,
the company started as a manufacturer of eyeglass frames and then of a wide
range of lens-related products, such as photographic lenses, camera shutters,
microscopes and binoculars. With c. €2.2bn of revenues (2011), Bausch +
Lomb employs around 11,000 people and distributes products in more than 100 countries. Bausch + Lomb
was publicly traded on the NYSE until 2007, when it was taken private by private equity firm Warburg Pincus
for c. €3.5bn.
Since its formation in 2009, TPV has closely cooperated with Bausch + Lomb with the aim of advancing
laser-based vision correction procedures – primarily for presbyopia and cataract – by combining TPV’s
innovative technology and Bausch + Lomb’s commercial reach and expertise in the eye correction industry.
The deal is expected to further advance ocular surgery through the development of new laser-based
technologies and their successful global rollout.
November 2012
Page 22 © Go4Venture 2012
Entrepreneurs Fund is the venture capital investment arm of COFRA, a Swiss-based family group with
operations in retail, real estate, financial services, private equity and renewable energy, which was founded
in 1861. Entrepreneurs Fund specializes in early stage and growth financing investments and seeks to invest
in technology, life sciences and cleantech companies. Entrepreneurs Fund is based in London with
additional offices in Jersey, Channel Islands.
Pharmaceutical, biotech and medtech investor HealthCap (€120mn (2011); AUM €900mn) is a stage
agnostic venture firm with offices in Sweden and Switzerland. As one of the largest European life sciences
investors, HealthCap’s first five funds invested in over 90 companies and have seen 36 exits with several
successful IPOs. The firm is currently investing out of its most recent fund – HealthCap VI – which was
raised in the spring of 2011. HealthCap has featured in our bulletin before with a €11.4mn Series C round for
non-invasive brain diagnostics and treatment firm Nexstim in January 2011. HealthCap last featured in our
June newsletter, co-leading a Late Stage internal round of €7.9mn in BoneSupport, a developer of an
injectable bone substitute.
Founded in 2007, German-based IBG is a venture capital firm specialising in seed and start up investments.
Its three funds are managed by the investment manager GoodVent, and are typically invested in technology
companies with focus on the healthcare, engineering, energy and ICT sectors. IBG seeks to invest up to
€10mn in companies based in central Germany and neighbouring areas, and it exits its investments after 5-
10 years.
Founded in 1997, IPSA (previously named as Innoven Partenaires) (€100mn (2012); €200mn AUM), is a
Paris-based venture capital firm participating in early to late stage investments. It typically invests in
European technology companies (60% of its funds) with a focus on the life sciences, biotechnology, medical,
cleantech and ICT sectors. The remaining 40% is invested in low risk instruments, in private or public
companies outside Europe, and in follow-up investment of its existing portfolio companies. IPSA seeks to
lead or co-lead funding rounds and typically invests between €2-10mn, in companies with revenues between
€10-100mn.
London-based NBGI Ventures, is the venture investment arm of NBGI Private Equity (€100mn (2011);
€900mn AUM), a private equity firm founded in 2000, with financial support from the National Bank of
Greece. At the time the NBGI Ventures team chose to focus on the medtech sector, a field which is still
underserved today. Medtech is proving full of rich pickings driven by the digitalisation of traditionally
analogue medical systems and, of course, the increasing public and private spend on healthcare, linked to
ageing populations. NBGI Ventures usually invests €3-4mn in companies at all stages and its recent
successful deals include the sale of Reverse Medical’s access catheter lines businesses to Covidien
(undisclosed amount), and the raising of €38m in an oversubscribed IPO for medical imaging company EOS
Imaging on NYSE Euronext, in February 2012.
November 2012
Page 23 © Go4Venture 2012
# Target & Acquirer
Target Sector
Price (€mn)
LTM Rev.
(€mn) P/R Funding
(€mn) P/F Noteworthy Sellers
3 Tikit Group (UK AIM:TIK) www.tikit.com BT (UK) www.bt.com
IT Services &
Distribution
76 33 2.3x N/A N/A Mobeus Equity Partners, NVM Private Equity, YFM Equity Partners.
Source: Capital IQ, The 451 Group, VentureSource; Go4Venture Analysis
Tikit Group (AIM:TIK), a technology solutions provider to legal and accountancy firms, will be acquired by
BT Group (LSE:BT.A) for €76mn in cash. The primary sellers include private equity firms Mobeus Equity
Partners, NVM Private Equity and YFM Equity Partners.
Tikit provides enterprise technology and services to legal and accountancy
firms across Europe and North America. Tikit’s solutions and services include
IT outsourcing, time capture, document production and infrastructure services,
as well as financial, practice, content and customer relationship management.
Founded in 1994 and based in London, Tikit employs 200 people in 8 offices
across Europe and North America. It counts as customers 90 of the top 100 UK
law firms, 12 of the European top 20 and 300 law firms in the US. Tikit has achieved its broad service
offering and market-leading status through both organic growth and acquisitions, including the acquisition of
PensEra Knowledge Technologies (€2mn, November 2010), a provider of time-tracking software for law
firms, as well as the acquisition of Technology for Business (€11mn, April 2008), a law firm software and
hardware provider. Mobeus became involved by acquiring a stake owned by Nova Capital Management in
2007, whilst NVM became involved through Tikit’s acquisition of Technology for Business, which NVM had
funded in 1999 and 2001. YFM has been an investor since 2001
BT, the former state-owned monopoly British Telecom, operates across four
segments: BT Global Services, which provides managed network IT services
globally; BT Retail, which serves businesses and residential customers and is
BT’s primary channel to market; BT Wholesale, which provides network
services to other communications companies; and Openreach, which is
responsible for the ‘last mile’ (technologies and processes used to connect the
end customer to a communications network) of telecoms connections in the UK. BT employs nearly 90,000
people, operates in 170 countries, and in 2011 generated c. €25bn of revenues.
Tikit will be combined with BT Retail (36% of 2012 revenues) and the acquisition will allow BT to combine the
strengths of Tikit’s tailored solutions and customer base in the legal sector, with BT’s scale and breadth of
products. This will create a differentiated offering with the ability to supply, install and support IT and
communications applications and infrastructure to the legal and accountancy sectors, through a single point
of contact.
Mobeus Equity Partners (€29mn (2005); €187mn AUM), is a UK-based private equity and venture capital
firm, formed after an MBO of Matrix Private Equity Partners from Matrix Group in June 2012. It invests
primarily in MBOs, but also gets involved in secondary buyouts, partial exits and recapitalisations, as well as
making growth equity investments and providing acquisition finance. The firm prefers to take minority stakes
in companies across the UK commercial and industrial sectors. It seeks to make equity investments of €2-
10mn in companies with profits between €1-4mn.
November 2012
Page 24 © Go4Venture 2012
NVM Private Equity (€58mn (2001); €248mn AUM), is a UK-based private equity firm established in 1984. It
invests in MBOs, growth equity and acquisition financing across a broad range of sectors. It seeks to make
equity investments of €2-10mn in companies based throughout the UK.
YFM Equity Partners (€13mn (2011); €436mn AUM), is a private equity firm with offices across the UK,
which manages a range of funds seeking to invest primarily in development capital, growth capital, or MBOs.
It also manages several historic, fully-invested funds which previously invested in earlier-stage ventures.
Many of its current and historic funds have a regional UK focus. It looks to invest between €125k-12.5mn,
depending on the stage of the investment. YFM last featured in our July 2012 bulletin, with an investment in
Pyreos, by one of its managed funds, Seraphim Capital. It is currently preparing to fundraise for its new
national fund YFM Equity Partners Fund II.
November 2012
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# Target & Acquirer Target Sector
Price (€mn)
LTM Rev.
(€mn) P/R Funding
(€mn) P/F Noteworthy Sellers
4 Star (UK) www.star.co.uk Claranet (UK) www.claranet.co.uk
Internet Services
68 62 1.1x 19 3.7x Notion Capital.
Source: Capital IQ, The 451 Group, VentureSource; Go4Venture Analysis
Star Technology Services (UK), a provider of on-demand computing and communication services, has
been acquired by Claranet (UK) for €68mn in cash. The primary seller is the venture capital firm Notion
Capital Partners.
Star Technology Services offers IT infrastructure services to UK businesses,
focused on migrating some or all of their computing and communications to the
cloud. Star was originally established in 1995 as a business-only Internet
Service Provider (ISP) by Jos and Ben White. The White brothers also founded
Notion Capital, raising funds from the sale of MessageLabs (a Star spin-out
providing messaging and security software) to Symantec for €546mn in 2008.
Notion Capital subsequently took ownership of Star, refocusing its offering on cloud technology; Star now
provides hosting and managed services, including IT Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS), network connectivity
support, IP telephony, communications management and IT security services. Star’s new focus ensured
sustained growth until its acquisition by Claranet, by which point it boasted half a million users and revenues
of €62mn. Star operates three data centres across the UK and employs 250 staff across five regional offices.
Founded in the UK in 1996, Claranet has grown to become a leading provider
of IT infrastructure solutions to businesses across six European countries. Its
offering includes managed cloud hosting, IaaS, network provision and
application hosting. Its 16 data centres and 500 staff ensure 24/7/365 support
and tailored Service Level Agreements (SLAs) to its 2,500 customers.
The acquisition of Star creates the largest mid-market provider of integrated
hosting and network services in the UK and continental Europe, with 4,500 customers and combined 2012
revenues expected at €150mn. As part of the combined company, Star’s existing customers will benefit from
Claranet’s European reach and its IaaS, virtual data centre and managed application hosting, whilst
Claranet’s customers will benefit from Star’s unified communications, remote desktop and security services.
The cash deal will be financed by US Private Equity firm Abry Partners (€1.2bn (2011), €2.7bn AUM) and
mezzanine financing company Ares Capital Europe, as well as RBS. The combined entity counts a range of
high-profile customers, including Airbus, Amnesty International, Channel 5, Veolia, De Vere Hotels, etc.
Founded in 2009, Notion Capital (€78mn (2012); €98mn AUM), is a UK-based venture capital firm, entirely
focused on Cloud Computing and Software-as-a-Service investments. The firm seeks to provide growth
capital to European companies, from seed to late stage. It typically invests between €300k at the seed stage,
and up to €6mn for later stage opportunities. Notion aims to be the first institutional investor involved in its
portfolio companies, taking a meaningful stake and leveraging its partners’ experience in order to have a
substantial impact on its portfolio companies. Notion Capital last featured in our October 2011 bulletin, with
an investment in Tradeshift, a cloud-based invoicing tools provider.
November 2012
Page 26 © Go4Venture 2012
List of Acronyms
Financial Terms:
AUM: Assets Under Management
FYE: Fiscal Year-End
LTM: Last 12 months
mn: million
P/E: Price to Earnings ratio
P/F: Price to Funding ratio
PIPE: Private Investment in Public Equity
Business Terms:
CPA: Cost per Action
CPC: Cost per Click
DRM: Digital Rights Management
DVR: Digital Video Recorder
GPL: General Public License
IOP: Intra-Ocular Pressure
ISP: Internet Service Provider
JSON: JavaScript Object Notation
MEMS: Micro Electro Mechanical Systems
REST: Representational State Transfer
RFID: Radio-Frequency Identification
SaaS: Software as a Service
SCM: Supply Chain Management
SLA: Service Level Agreements
November 2012
Page 27 © Go4Venture 2012
Go4Venture Advisers LLP
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Berkeley Square [email protected]
London
W1J 5EN
Disclaimer
This report has been prepared and issued by Go4Venture Advisers LLP who are authorised and regulated by the Financial Services Authority.
All information used in the publication of this report, has been compiled from publicly available sources that are believed to be reliable, however no representation, warranty, or undertaking, express or limited is given as to the accuracy or completeness of the information or opinions contained in this report. Opinions contained in this report represent those of Go4Venture Advisers LLP at the time of publication. This research is non-objective. This document is provided for information purposes only and should not be construed as an offer or solicitation for investment. Furthermore, as the information contained in this document is strictly confidential it may not be reproduced or further distributed.
The value of investments and any income generated may go down as well as up. Past performance is not necessarily a guide to future performance. Investors may not get back the amount invested. This publication is not intended to be relied upon in making any specific investment or other decisions. Appropriate independent advice should be obtained before making any such decision.
This report has been compiled by Jean-Michel Deligny, Managing Director – for and on behalf of Go4Venture.
Copyright: 2012 Go4Venture. All rights reserved
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