Adrian J Cotterill, Editor-in-Chief
Adform A/S, a global leader of ad tech software and services, has announced that GRO Capital has become a new shareholder after injecting significant equity into the company. GRO Capital will partner with existing shareholder VIA equity and Adform’s management team with a continued focus on establishing a global independent industry leading company.
Established in Copenhagen in 2002, Adform is a leading provider of software systems that buyers and sellers of digital display advertising use to automate and optimise their advertising processes and effectiveness.
Adform’s software platform consists of a number of individual products that each play a role in the process.
The organisation has approximately 850 employees across 27 offices globally.
Gustav Mellentin, CEO and co-founder of Adform told us “We are very excited about the partnership with GRO Capital and look forward to collaborating to fulfil our joint vision to serve large advertisers, agencies and publishers with our leading software platform across data, creative and trading. GRO Capital represents a unique combination of capital and competencies that can support us in our journey to become the leading independent full stack ad tech provider with a global footprint.”
Lars Dybkjær, Managing Partner at GRO Capital said “We have followed Adform for many years and are very impressed with its product and blue-chip customer base, which includes some of the largest advertisers and agencies globally. This investment is perfectly aligned with GRO Capital’s strategy of investing in outstanding technology companies supporting their transformation and growth ambitions. Gustav Mellentin has built a very strong team and assembled a deep bench of highly skilled and ambitious individuals. We really look forward to helping the team build on existing strengths to leverage their position as the leading independent full stack software provider with a high level of transparency, leading data security and strong customer support.”
Lars Dybkjær (Managing Partner at GRO Capital), Lars Lunde (Partner at GRO Capital) and Torben Munch (former CEO of Itiviti Group AB and COO of SimCorp A/S) will join Adform’s Board of Directors, with Munch in the role of Chairman.
Closing of the Transaction is anticipated to take place by the end of April 2019. Danske Bank acted as financial advisor to Adform in the Transaction.
GRO Capital is a Northern European private equity fund with an exclusive focus on mature B2B software and tech enabled companies with strong growth prospects. GRO Capital serves as active owners developing portfolio companies with a view to create long-term value. The partners behind GRO Capital have been investors in more than 20 technology and software related companies. Adform is the second investment in GRO Fund II, a recently raised fund with a strategy to accelerate Northern European software companies. In addition to Adform, GRO Capital has in GRO Fund II invested in Omada, while GRO Fund I include investments in Auditdata, Boyum IT Solutions, Tacton Systems, Targit, Trackunit, and Trifork, which are all successful B2B software providers.
On Wednesday May 15, 2019 at AdTECH: OOH – London during London Digital Signage Week, Adform’s UK Commercial Director Andreas Dooley is chairing a panel ‘Programmatic Direct vs Real Time Bidding’ involving BidSwitch’s Laura Swire, Outmoove’s Mendel Looije and Talon Outdoor’s Josko Grljevic.
Registration can be found here.
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