LONDON, England — March 26 2021
Clearwater International has advised nudge, a market leading global financial wellbeing platform, on its investment from Kennet Partners to expand its global operations.
nudge provides a SaaS platform focused on enhancing the financial wellbeing of individuals across 50 countries. It is addressing a rapidly growing demand for employee wellbeing solutions as it becomes a higher priority for organisations. This focus was a growing trend before COVID-19 with a recognition that employee wellbeing directly contributes to productivity, but it has rapidly accelerated since, largely due to the increased pressures on employees from the uncertain economic environment, home-working and the associated impacts of the pandemic.
Kennet has provided nudge with investment to accelerate its global expansion. This partnership enables nudge to develop the financial skills and knowledge of millions of more people globally, including the US with a local solution.
"As we recover and rebuild from coronavirus, financial wellbeing (the feeling of confidence and control over one’s money), has unrivalled importance for the world’s productivity and economic recovery. Kennet Partners’ investment helps us extend and accelerate our support for millions of more lives globally."
Tim Perkins, co-founder, nudge
"This partnership will turbo-charge our growth helping us launch our unique solution in many more countries for millions of more people."
Jeremy Beament, co-founder, nudge
"We pride ourselves on helping organisations take the next big jump, which is why we chose to work with nudge to aid their expansion into new and existing global markets. We are proud of what nudge stands for and together look forward to helping more people build a brighter financial future."
Michael Elias, Managing Director, Kennet Partners
"When we met Tim and Jeremy it was immediately obvious that nudge was a special business addressing a significant unmet need – staggeringly, a quarter of employees admit that money worries are having an impact on their focus at work. We really enjoyed helping to find a partner that believes in the vision of the founders and that can support the growth of nudge as it continues delivering a much-needed solution to more people."
Wesley Fell-Smith, TMT Director, Clearwater International
Learn More at: www.clearwaterinternational.com
LONDON, England — March 16 2021
LoyaltyLion, a leading loyalty and engagement platform for fast-growth ecommerce brands, today announced the closing of $12.5 million in Series A funding with an investment from Kennet Partners, an international growth equity firm whose portfolio includes high-growth companies in Europe and North America. This growth investment supports LoyaltyLion’s mission to help ecommerce brands build a better understanding of what will drive long lasting customer relationships and use those insights to create unique and rewarding loyalty programs.
This funding round takes place on the back of a number of years of significant growth for LoyaltyLion which it has achieved in a very capital efficient manner. In 2020, LoyaltyLion experienced triple digital revenue growth and doubled its headcount. With the new funding, LoyaltyLion plans to invest in growing its Development and Customer Success teams and further evolving its loyalty and engagement platform. This will give customers greater access to the loyalty expertise, features and integrations they need to build successful loyalty programs that connect and accelerate their ecommerce marketing efforts. They will also continue with global expansion plans and set up a physical office in North America.
As part of this investment for expansion, Michael Elias, managing director and founder of Kennet Partners, will join the LoyaltyLion board of directors.
About LoyaltyLion
LoyaltyLion is a data-driven loyalty and engagement platform, powering growth for thousands of ecommerce brands worldwide. LoyaltyLion helps merchants build a better understanding of what drives longer-lasting customer relationships and provides the platform needed to create a unique loyalty program that increases retention and spend. Founded in 2012, LoyaltyLion is headquartered in London. Learn more at https://loyaltylion.com/.
About Kennet Partners
Founded in 1997, Kennet Partners is a Silicon Valley and London-based growth equity investor with $900 million under management. Kennet focuses on partnering with bootstrapped and fast-growing SaaS and tech-enabled services businesses with a focus on predictive analytics and AI and has a track record of building global market leaders and achieving high-value exits. For more information, visit kennet.com.
Investors exit as Nuxeo secures half of Fortune 10 companies as customers
March 4, 2021: Kennet Partners Limited (“Kennet”), a leading European technology growth equity investor focused on bootstrapped and capital efficient companies, and Goldman Sachs Growth Equity ("Goldman Sachs"), a leading global growth equity investor, have entered into an agreement to sell co-owned portfolio company, Nuxeo, a content services platform and digital asset management (DAM) provider. Kennet and Goldman Sachs are expected to make a 5x return on their investment in Nuxeo.
Kennet and Goldman Sachs acquired Nuxeo in 2016. Nuxeo’s platform focuses on Digital Asset Management for companies with fast product life cycles such as media, fashion and consumer electronics, and Enterprise Content Management for financial institutions. Nuxeo has a range of global customers across its target sectors such as ABN-AMRO, Fox, Electronic Arts, CVS, and Siemens.
Over the last five years, Goldman Sachs and Kennet have worked to build Nuxeo’s world-class management team and to accelerate the company’s growth as it secured half of the Fortune 10 companies as customers. Goldman Sachs helped Nuxeo achieve broader market visibility and win several new key customers in financial services as well as other sectors. In support of Nuxeo’s CEO, Eric Barroca and CMO Chris McLaughlin, Kennet introduced the current CFO, James Colquhoun and Executive Chairman, Steve King.
Michael Elias, Managing Director, Kennet Partners, said:
“Nuxeo is a prime example of the type of company in which we seek to invest. When we first invested, it was clear that the business had solid foundations but lacked the resources and broader team to take it to the next level of growth. We were able to support Eric and the team to accelerate Nuxeo’s growth trajectory and are proud of what we have collectively achieved. We wish the company all the best as it moves to the next chapter in its exciting development.”
Christian Resch, Managing Director, Goldman Sachs Growth Equity, said:
“Back in 2016 we quickly recognized Nuxeo’s strong technology differentiation in the ever-evolving content management software space. Over the last five years we helped Nuxeo grow its organisation, software products and market presence and we are delighted with its performance. We wish Eric and his team all the best in continuing to further build Nuxeo’s unique platform.”
Eric Barroca, CEO, Nuxeo, said: “The offer from Hyland is a strong endorsement of the vision and market position we’ve achieved so far, particularly in recent years. Thanks to the support and investment by Goldman Sachs and Kennet we have been able to become a global leader in enterprise content services. We look forward to working with the team at Hyland.”
Media Enquiries
SEC Newgate UK
Tali Robinson, Jessica Hodson Walker and Jamie Williams
KennetPartners@secnewgate.co.uk
+44 (0) 20 3757 6865
Notes to Editor:
About Kennet Partners
Kennet is a leading international growth equity firm that invests in high-growth companies in Europe and North America. The firm supports entrepreneurial technology businesses with expansion capital to accelerate growth and build exceptional shareholder value. Kennet is an experienced investor with approximately $1 billion of cumulative funds under management. For more information: www.kennet.com.
Kennet’s successful investment model focuses on bootstrapped companies which are often founder-managed and have previously received little external investment. Kennet provides knowledge, contacts and investment to SaaS companies where there is significant potential for growth. Other recent investments by Kennet include Onfleet, Grip, and Provar Testing.
Kennet Partners Limited is authorized and regulated in the United Kingdom by the Financial Conduct Authority.
About Goldman Sachs
Founded in 1869, The Goldman Sachs Group, Inc. is a leading global investment banking, securities and investment management firm. Goldman Sachs Asset Management is the primary center for the firm’s long-term principal investing activity. Goldman Sachs Asset Management is one of the leading private capital investors in the world with investments across private equity, infrastructure, private debt, growth equity and real estate.
About Nuxeo
Founded in 2000 and with offices in New York City, Paris, and London, Nuxeo offers a cloud-native, open-source, low-code platform with content services and DAM capabilities, among others.
LONDON, England — February 3, 2021
Provar, the leading test automation platform for Salesforce worldwide, today announced the closing of $17 million in Series A funding led with an investment from Kennet Partners, an international growth equity firm whose portfolio includes high-growth companies in Europe and North America. This growth investment supports Provar’s ongoing mission to help teams capitalize on their Salesforce investment with a robust and scalable solution designed to improve release agility, drive down system errors and advance innovation.
As part of this investment for expansion, Michael Elias, managing director and founder of Kennet Partners, will join the Provar board of directors. In addition, Bob DeSantis, a current board member with extensive experience steering high-growth companies within the Salesforce ecosystem, will now serve as the chairman.
“At Kennet, we focus on bootstrapped B2B SaaS companies with a strong and satisfied customer base,” said Michael Elias, managing director at Kennet Partners. “In addition to fitting this criteria, Provar has a culture of integrity and customer focus that makes them especially appealing to us. The demand for software-driven automation has increased dramatically as part of the broader digital transformation that is being accelerated by the Covid-19 pandemic and our funding will allow Provar to continue to scale and innovate.”
Companies are increasingly investing in their approach to customer relationship management globally and leaning heavily into platforms like Salesforce to make data-driven decisions, operationalize best practices, unite distributed teams and forge deeper connections with customers to help facilitate growth. This shift has rapidly accelerated the need for teams to build, test and deploy customized Salesforce enhancements and functionality exponentially faster while eliminating risk.
“Customers are hungry for a Salesforce-centric test automation solution that can create break-resistant tests, release after release, while also extending into integrated systems when needed,” said Geraint Waters, co-founder and chief executive officer at Provar. “Given the accelerated demand for Salesforce release deployments and the tools connected to them, traditional methods that require an excruciating amount of test maintenance just aren’t feasible anymore. That’s why Provar is designed to fill that gap using an intelligent metadata-driven model.”
Since launching Provar seven years ago, the company has organically grown its customer base worldwide and opened offices in the U.K., North America and India. With the new funding, Provar plans to invest further in its test automation platform, expand operations, scale the team globally and broaden the virtually limitless possibilities of Salesforce test automation.
Bromsgrove-based Rimilia, which works with the likes of Disney and HSBC, has raised millions for its technology that automates payments
A British fintech firm which uses artificial intelligence to automate payments has raised $15m (£11.5m) from investors as it looks to fuel the growth of its business.
Rimilia, a fintech firm founded in Bromsgrove in 2008, has raised money in a growth round involving a string of existing investors, including Eight Road Ventures, a London-headquartered venture capital firm that was an early backer in Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba, Silicon Valley Bank and Kennet Partners.
The company uses artificial intelligence to help clients speed up the usually laborious and manual work required to process payments from customers. In 2019, its technology help automate the collection of £110bn.
According to Kevin Kimber, chief executive of Rimilia, whose fintech start-up works with the likes of Disney, HSBC and Royal Mail, many companies spend months collecting cash from customers, leaving them millions of pounds out of pocket for longer than necessary.
“We're helping these businesses automate their accounts receivable function so fundamentally how they get paid,” he said.
“Typically these large global corporates are still largely managing this process manually with spreadsheets and so there's very little predictability or control.”
Mr Kimber has previously worked to scale technology businesses having taken ServiceNow, a US cloud computing firm, to the public markets at a $4bn valuation in June 2012.
The float in New York was the first major initial public offering by a technology company after Facebook’s listing in May 2012. The company now has a $60bn market capitalisation.
The fintech chief executive, who joined the firm in 2018, said companies are searching for ways to free up staff from “fairly mundane and manual tasks that we as humans don't want to deal with”.
The company currently has offices in the UK, US and Canada and hires around more than 140 people.
Full Article: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/2020/02/03/british-fintech-firm-rimilia-raises-15m-boost-ai-payments-business/
Codility, a platform that helps tech recruiters and hiring managers asses candidates through online coding tests, today announced that it has raised a $22 million Series A round led by Oxx and Kennet Partners.
This marks the first time Codility has raised any funding, after 10 years as a bootstrapped company. Clearly, though, despite having achieved double-digit annual recurring revenue in those 10 years, the team now believes that it has an opportunity to grow its market share in what is becoming a more competitive market for tech hiring platforms — and to do so, it needs outside funding.
So far, the company has brought on an impressive list of customers, including Microsoft, Tesla, Slack, Okta, Rakuten, American Express and UnitedHealth Group. In total, the company says it had 1,500 customers in 2019 and helped them evaluate more than 450,000 candidates, a number the company says has grown over 50% year-over-year.
What sets Codility apart from similar platforms is that it aims to provide coding tests that are closer to what engineers typically face in their day-to-day jobs instead of highly abstract whiteboarding sessions that evaluate their theory of algorithms knowledge.
“The biggest bottleneck to achieving this lies in sourcing, screening and interviewing,” said Codility CEO Natalia Panowicz. “This is where Codility comes in. We allow businesses to deliver great experiences to candidates and deep insights to the hiring team — improving decision-making and ultimately increasing their overall engineering capacity.”
The company says its system allows it to provide recruiters with a “360-degree evaluation of technical ability” that helps managers ensure that a candidate is a good fit for a given position. Ideally, this also reduces the effect of unconscious bias in the recruiting and placement process.
As part of its platform, Codility offers its technical skills and evaluation services for recruiters, including a shared editor for live technical interviews. In addition, the company also helps companies run their own coding competitions, which they can then use to identify potential candidates, including those who aren’t actively looking for a new job.“Codility is a great solution for hiring teams based on the needs of quality high-volume hiring; such as consistency, standardization and scalability,” said Vicky Xiong, senior director of Engineering at Okta . “Codility also enables Okta to create a great candidate experience, which is core to our values as a company.”
Full press release: https://techcrunch.com/2020/01/30/codility-raises-22m-for-its-tech-recruiting-platform/