Throughout 2018 we saw how several venture capital companies specialising in IT were being sold and, moreover, for significant amounts. We did not want to be left behind and we have investigated these operations, exposing in this post the 5 most relevant sales. We are talking about divestments totalling more than 2.5 billion euros.
In the following, we analyse from our field of corporate finance the last 5 company sales IT venture capital (Source: Capital&Corporate):
In one of the sales processes most competitive of the year, Cinven sold the Spanish fibre operator Ufinet Telecom HoldingGas Natural's former telecommunications business. This was its first divestment in Spain since the British private equity firm opened an office in 2015.
The transaction was signed on 11 May 2018, whereby Cinven charged 2 billion eurosThis amount represents a capital gain of 1.1 billion in only four years. This sale was the largest venture capital operation in Spain in 2018.
Ufinet is a neutral telecommunications operator, providing services to other operators and all types of large customers. Its origins date back to 1998, when the former Unión Fenosa created the company from a small telecommunications department. Since 2014, the company doubled its Ebitda to 140 million euros.
The French insurer CNP Assurances took control of iHealth in an operation that Spanish start-up valued at 50 million euros.
iSalud, founded in 2010 as the first health insurance comparison portal, has a volume of more than 45 million euros in premiums managed and a team of 110 people.
The operation was carried out by means of a acquisition of shares and a capital increaseThe transaction was the largest transaction in Spain in the insurtech sector. It also implied an implied multiple of more than 10x for Inveready Technology Investment GroupThe venture capital manager that supported the company from its inception using a venture debt instrument.
In addition, it also involved the exit of another investor, Mediaset, which entered the capital in 2015. As reported by C & C, the 90% of the capital was in the hands of the founders and the remaining 10% from Inveready and Mediaset.
Founded in 2010 and based in Barcelona, Adman Media has developed the world's largest video delivery platform (SSP) for native Spanish-speaking formats in Europe and Latin America. This solution enables seamless distribution of advertisers' video content through high-quality publishers to achieve a high degree of success with audiences and maximise publishers' revenues.
In April we learned that the Canadian technology company AcuityAds took over 100% from Adman Media for EUR 17.5 million. This amount was divided on the one hand into 12 million disbursed in cash and an earn out of up to 5.5 million subject to the results obtained by the Spanish company in the second quarter of the year.
The operation meant the exit of Inveready from Adman Media's shareholding, which transferred its stake in the company, close to 30%, to the American company.
Advance Medical is one of the leaders in the provision of second medical opinion to patients through experts in all major specialties. The Spanish company employs more than 800 employees worldwide, including 400 doctors and nurses, who collaborate with a network of more than 50,000 healthcare experts. Its turnover amounted to €48m in 2016 (last year for which data is available), with a profit of €1.41m.
In July Summit Partners exited the shareholding of Advance Medical after sell its minority stake in the firm to the US company Teladoc. The amount of the transaction amounted to 301 millionof which 250 were paid in cash and 51 in Teladoc shares.
Summit Partners' divestment came just two months after its entry into the Catalan company. In April, the US fund took a minority stake in Advance Medical, with the intention of support its next phase of growth 40 million.
Established in 2007 and headquartered in San Mateo, California, AlienVault is a developer of commercial and open source solutions for managing cyber attacks. One of its best-known products is Open Threat Exchange (OTX), a free community-based security threat response platform. The firm closed 2017 very positively and maintains a year-on-year revenue growth of more than 50%.
In September we were informed that Adara Ventures Partners had successfully divested of AlienVault, which had been acquired by US-based AT&T for an amount exceeding 500 million.
According to C&C, Adara described the deal as "one of the most significant venture capital operations anchored in the Spanish innovation ecosystem and with a large international footprint".