2 Jan 2024
Investcorp, a leading global alternative investment firm today announced that its global technology arm, Investcorp Technology Partners (“ITP”) has entered into an agreement to acquire a majority stake in VEDA GmbH (“VEDA” or “the Company”), a leading full-suite HR software and digitally enabled payroll-as-a-service provider in the DACH region. VEDA’s CEO Ralf Graessler will continue to remain invested in the Company alongside Investcorp. Terms of the transaction were not disclosed.
Headquartered in Alsdorf, Germany, with approximately 170 employees, VEDA provides a platform solution for digital HR management, including payroll, time and security, recruiting, personnel development and learning management with the aim of digitizing tasks and minimizing administrative effort. The Company has approximately 1,200 customers, including MAN, Lufthansa and many mid-market enterprises between 150-5,000 employees of size. In 2023 VEDA generated revenues of ca. €20 million.
ITP, as VEDA’s first institutional investor, will help to strengthen the Company’s go-to-market strategy and further build out its portfolio of products and services, with a focus on the Company’s fast-growing cloud business. As the Company operates across the large and fragmented DACH HR and payroll markets, the investment will also allow VEDA to grow through add-on acquisitions of companies with complementary products and services.
Georg Knoflach, Managing Director at ITP, stated, “Investcorp Technology Partners is pleased to be investing in VEDA, a company that continues to have a leading position in the ca. €3 billion DACH HR and payroll software / services market for SMEs. We were impressed by the quality of VEDA’s products and go-to-market strategy, and we see incredible opportunities to support the Company as it helps more SMEs move their mission-critical HR services to the cloud. We look forward to partnering with CEO Ralf Graessler and the entire VEDA team on this next phase for the Company”.
Ralf Graessler, CEO of VEDA, added: “We are very proud to be bringing in Investcorp Technology Partners as VEDA’s first institutional investor. ITP’s knowledge of our sector and market are unparallelled, and they are the perfect partner for us as we move into our next stage of growth, both in terms of digitalisation and through further acquisitions. VEDA will continue to move from strength to strength under this new partnership as we bring exceptional HR software solutions and services to even more companies in the DACH region.”
ITP has established a market-leading position of investing in lower mid-market technology companies with a specific focus on Software, Data / Analytics, Cybersecurity, and Fintech. The investment in VEDA represents the fourth investment from ITP’s global fund, Investcorp Technology Partners V, following its investments in HWG Sababa (Cybersecurity, Italy), Zift Solutions (PRM Software, USA), and NetRom (Software engineering, the Netherlands). It also marks a continuation of a successful DACH region investment strategy for the firm, which exited HR software company softgarden in 2022 with a MOIC of 3.2x, and is ITP’s fourth software investment in Germany in the last five years.
The transaction is expected to close in Q1 2024, subject to customary closing conditions.