- Strategically significant step towards expansion of cloud business
- Access to new customer segments
- Attractive growth and valuation prospects
Mülheim a. d. Ruhr/Leipzig 27.12.2018. EASY SOFTWARE AG acquires a majority stake in Leipzig-based Apinauten GmbH and merges it with its Cloud subsidiary. In a first step, EASY acquires 72.3 percent of the shares – full integration is targeted with effect from 2020.
“With the purchase of Apinauten, the business opportunities of EASY SOFTWARE AG are fundamentally expanded,” says Dieter Weißhaar, CEO of EASY SOFTWARE AG. “This strategic step gives us access to new customer segments in the attractive and strongly growing cloud and digitization business. Together with the entire competence of Apinauten, we are an excellently positioned provider of cloud solutions for the digitization and mobilization of business processes – Made in Germany,” says Weißhaar.
Leipzig-based Apinauten GmbH develops and markets the European “Enterprise Back¬end as a Service” with “ApiOmat”. Gartner, an international IT analyst firm, lists Apinauten GmbH’s ApiOmat platform for the first time in 2018 in the Gartner Magic Quadrant for “Mobile App Development Platforms” (1). The team of more than 45 employees around founder Marcel Etzel started with five mobile professionals in Jena. After being financed by the Technologiegründerfonds Sachsen in January 2013, Apinauten GmbH moved its headquarters to Leipzig. In 2018, the company plans to generate sales of around EUR 2.3 million, half of which will be with recurring and long-term, calculable subscriptions.
With its cloud platform, EASY serves over 6,000 end customers of its own and is growing rapidly. The combination of the two business units creates a relevant provider of B2B cloud solutions. Both companies have been working together successfully for several years.
Groups such as HDI, Union Investment and Clariant are already Apinauten customers. The ApiOmat platform gives EASY access to other market segments. As a result of the acquisition, EASY is planning to achieve around 8 percent of their business in 2019 with cloud solutions. Accordingly, the company, which previously mainly offered content services platforms, expects a significant increase in cloud revenue.
“With EASY SOFTWARE AG, Apinauten will find a strong partner that fits us 100 percent,” says company founder Marcel Etzel. “After a successful foundation and dynamic development of attractive customers, integration into a company as recognized in the market as EASY opens up new perspectives. In particular, the integrations to existing systems and process know-how provided by EASY create competitive advantages,” says Etzel, who will remain on board with his entire management team in the new partnership and will continue to expand Apinauten’s business.
“Since the state of Saxony is now saying goodbye to its commitment after the founding financing in order to create space for strategic investors to accompany the further growth of Apinauten, EASY now has a unique opportunity to seize. Digitization and cloud businesses are valued higher in the market than the classic license business and are therefore positive value drivers for EASY shareholders,” says EASY CEO Dieter Weißhaar.
The purchase price is to be financed in part by external financing as well as from own funds. To this end, a capital increase is to be carried out in the first quarter of 2019 using the existing authorized capital. The estimated approximately 1,000,000 new shares of EASY SOFTWARE AG to be issued are initially to be offered to the shareholders within the scope of a preemptive rights offering.
Following the acquisition, EASY plans to have a solid balance sheet structure with an equity ratio of around 55 percent.
“The new Apinauten team is a strategic acquisition and will sharpen our profile. We are gaining an excellently trained and motivated team. It has successfully implemented major development projects and ranks among the top 10 platforms worldwide. We want to continue investing in the Leipzig location,” adds Weißhaar.
1 Gartner Inc. “Magic Quadrant for Mobile App Development Platforms” by Jason Wong, Van L. Baker, Adrian Leow, Marty Resnick