Analysis of 8 Data & Analytics M&A and Fundraising Deals, 1 IPO and a Spin-Off - Sept 2-5, 2024
TL;DR - Future sale of Aurora Energy Research; Fortive splitting; IPO of Springer Nature; Takeover of Rightmove; Acquisitions by EcoVadis, Green Street, Datasite, aosphere; Investment in Sedric, 11xAI
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September 5 - Aurora Energy Research owner CGE Partners weighs GBP1bn sale.
The market has been waiting for someone to fire the starting pistol here and make this information public, after plenty of sotto voce conversations behind closed doors.
Mergermarket have obliged with a short piece broadcasting the rumour that next year could be the year for power generation Data & Analytics provider Aurora Energy Research to come to market.
Certainly the investor world is ready for this - large PE firms are salivating at the prospect of taking Aurora off CGE Partners’ hands.
The previous process, in 2020, was run by friends of Asymmetrix Andrew Adams and Tara Anand Carter at Houlihan Lokey. Tara is now a Partner at serial Data & Analytics investors Hg.
Co-founder of Capital IQ Randall Winn’s 22C Capital and Aurora’s current chairman and Energy & Commodities Data & Analytics veteran Steve Halliday also invested alongside CGE.
It’s going to be a very busy process - any upper-mid-market PE firm worth their salt will want to take a look at the CIM. Asymmetrix imagines there will be a similar feeding frenzy in the advisory world, as investment banks jostle for the mandate. It’s worth noting that Baird advised CGE on the way in.
Asymmetrix will write a longer piece on Aurora next week.
September 5 - Fortive announces strategic plans for separation into two Independent Public Companies
This is noteworthy for the Data & Analytics community because listed Fortive owns a number of Data & Analytics businesses, most notably construction-focused Gordian.
Upon completion of the planned spin-off, Fortive will consist of the portfolio brands currently operating under Fortive’s Intelligent Operating Solutions and Advanced Healthcare Solutions business segments. Fortive's market-leading portfolio of technology solutions, with approximately 50% recurring revenue, delivers productivity, safety and reliability value to customers.
Evercore and Morgan Stanley & Co. LLC are serving as financial advisors, and Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz is serving as legal counsel to Fortive.
We’ll keep an eye on this going forwards.
September 5 - EcoVadis, the sustainability intelligence platform, announces the strategic acquisition of Ulula, a human rights technology and analytics company aiming to improve working conditions across global supply chains.
Founded in 2015, Canada-based Ulula provides solutions aimed at fostering more transparency in global supply chains and to improve social, labor and human rights impacts, with a presence in sectors including mining, manufacturing, textiles, construction, electronics and agriculture. The company provides automated workforce surveys, grievance management systems and analytics dashboards, aimed at enabling companies to engage workers and communities to identify human and labor rights risks across supply chains, and build insights to address and remediate those risks.
EcoVadis is backed by a raft of big name investors. Their $500m 2022 round included CVC, Astorg, General Atlantic’s BeyondNetZero and Singapore’s GIC.
This is a relatively small acquisition, but in a strategically important area:
The Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive (CSDDD) will require all EU and non-EU companies with over 450 million euros of turnover in Europe to implement grievance mechanisms for their supply chain by 2029. The new directive also allows penalties of up to 5% of global turnover for non-compliance.
September 5 - Sedric raises $18.5m Series A for AI-based fintech compliance platform
This is Sedric’s second round, and brings the total amount raised by the company to date to $22m.
The latest funding round was led by Foundation Capital with participation from Amex Ventures and existing investors including StageOne Ventures and The Garage. Previous investors include StageOne Ventures, The Garage, Gefen Capital, Skywell Capital, Secret Chord, and K20 Fund.
Asymmetrix follows GRC closely - our dataset in this sector gets bigger and bigger by the day!
September 5 - Green Street, a provider of commercial real estate intelligence and analytics in the U.S., Canada, and Europe, has acquired IJGlobal, part of the Delinian Group.
Just three months on from their last acquisition, covered by Asymmetrix in the post below, Green Street is at it again.
This time they’re acquiring the artist formerly known as Infrastructure Journal from Epiris-owned Delinian, who continue to trim the fat after the demerger of Astorg-owned Fastmarkets.
Cardean Bell acted as exclusive financial advisers to Delinian. The Cardean Bell team comprised Peter Bell, Oliver Levy and Jo Royden-Turner.
As previously mentioned, TA Associates acquired a majority stake in Green Street in July 2022 from Welsh, Carson, Anderson & Stowe (who retained a minority stake).
IJGlobal is Green Street’s fifth acquisition since 2020.
What will they buy next? There are no shortage of opportunities in Real Estate Data & Analytics. The ever-growing Asymmetrix dataset contains 100+ companies.
September 5 - A16Z eyes stake in start-up 11xAI.
As no stranger to pounding the phones or sending 1000s of outbound emails in the cause of business development, Asymmetrix keeps a close eye on the Sales & Marketing Data & Analytics sector.
So, when Sky News’ Mark Kleinman leaked the news about the potential investment by megastar VC investors Andreesen Horowitz in 11xAI, we were very excited.
Although their plan is to build other automated digital workers, 11xAI is focused for now on creating AI Sales Professionals. So much work in sales is process-driven, repetitive and automatable, and therefore a natural area in which to use AI.
(Alice - 11xAI’s AI Sales Development Rep. Click through to the website to see the spookily realistic automated version in action.)
11xAI raised $2m in funding in 2023 from investors including Project A and No Label Ventures.
When and if the deal closes we’ll let you know.
September 4 - Datasite, a SaaS platform to execute strategic projects, announced that it has completed its acquisition of Paris-based Sealk, an artificial intelligence (AI) search engine that provides dealmakers with a new way to conduct company and mergers and acquisitions (M&A) transactions research. Terms of the agreement are not being disclosed.
As a recovering Corporate Finance professional, Asymmetrix knows only too well the pain of identifying potential buyers for a business. Right now there are Financial Analysts out there pulling all-nighters in part doing exactly that.
Sealk aren’t the only company out there claiming to facilitate buyer identification, but they must be doing something right for ICG- and Capvest-backed Datasite to take them off the table.
It’s been a busy year for Datasite.
They acquired Zurich-based board reporting software provider Sherpany in February, and Australian competitor Ansarada in May for AUD263m.
Capvest also moved Datasite into a continuation vehicle in May, with ICG taking a majority stake in the EUR2.75bn entity.
September 4 - aosphere, provider of online legal and compliance analysis solutions, has acquired BRP Bizzozero & Partners Group, a privately owned, Switzerland-based group dedicated to providing compliance solutions for banking and financial regulation.
Inflexion and Endicott Capital acquired Allen & Overy’s legal tech business aosphere for roughly £200m in October 2023.
aosphere provides online legal analysis across various compliance topics. They offer data privacy analysis, practical analysis of e-signing issues, analysis of cross-border marketing, analysis of crypto asset regulation, rules for shareholding disclosure in multiple jurisdictions, and issuer data services.
Bizzozero has 480 clients, so this is not an insignificant deal for aosphere, but expect to see more of these deals, and larger, as the two investors grow the business by any means necessary.
September 3 - Reuters leaks news that Springer Nature could launch $9bn IPO as soon as next week.
This is a saga that has run and run.
Springer Nature’s IPO has had many false starts since Holtzbrinck Publishing Group and BC Partners smashed Nature Publishing Group, Palgrave Macmillan and Macmillan Education together with Springer Science+Business Media in January 2015.
They tried the market in May 2018, and then again in autumn 2020.
According to Reuters, the owners are ready to try again. Will 2025 be the year it finally happens?
Since the last IPO attempts, Neuberger Berman joined as investors in 2021, and will also presumably be keen to see a return on investment.
Reuters trailed this story back in May, and stated that Morgan Stanley, JPMorgan and Deutsche Bank were going to be coordinating the process.
Shareholders Holtzbrinck Publishing Group and BC Partners own 53% and 47% stakes respectively.
More here anon.
September 2 - REA Group Ltd are considering a takeover offer for Rightmove Plc, a UK property portal with a market value of £5.16bn.
News Corp controlled REA Group issued a release to the ASX on Monday this week confirming that:
It is considering a possible cash and share offer for the entire issued and to be issued share capital of Rightmove. REA has not approached, nor had any discussions with, Rightmove regarding any potential offer, and makes this announcement in accordance with the requirements of the Code.
REA sees a transformational opportunity to apply its globally leading capabilities and expertise to enhance customer and consumer value across the combined portfolio and to create a global and diversified digital property company, with number 1 positions in Australia and the UK.
REA now has until 30 September to put up or shut up - to make a firm offer or withdraw.
At the time of writing this post, REA had a valuation of AUD27bn (USD18bn), while Rightmove was valued at GBP5.16bn (USD6.77bn).
News Corp bought a 44% stake in 2001 for about AUD2m.
Marketplaces are ripe for global consolidation in all sectors, and Real Estate is no exception.
Watch this space.