Amadeus And Wellington Back EnQii
Adrian J Cotterill, Editor-in-Chief
Further to our story early Monday morning ‘EnQii Raise USD 18 Million‘ where we wrote…
Two of Europe’s biggest VC’s, who we believe to be Amadeus and Wellington will later today announce a fundraising round of USD 18 Million for EnQii.
We believe the money is most likely to be spent on major expansion in China, in the US and on a number of strategic media investments.
Here is the official press release…
PRESS RELEASE
Amadeus and Wellington back global digital out-of-home media company company, EnQii
- $18 million funding enables EnQii to accelerate global growth
- Digital signage and out-of-home media markets growing rapidly
London, September 29th 2008. Amadeus Capital Partners and Wellington Partners have invested $18 million in a Series B round financing in EnQii Holdings Ltd, a global leader in the management of digital out-of-home (DOOH) advertising and merchandising networks. Roy Merritt, Partner at Amadeus, and Wellington General Partner, Frank Boehnke, will join the board of the company. The investors will join Ithmaar Bank, Kingdom of Bahrain, EnQii’s original investor. Carolyn Prowse, Managing Director, from Ithmaar Bank will also join the board.
EnQii works in partnership with advertising networks and retailers, providing a full managed service of design, installation, technology and operation of web-enabled digital displays. The company has over 100 customers in 14 countries around the world, who typically operate substantial estates of screens ranging from large LED or digital billboards to smaller shelf-located screens in retail environments. The new financing will be used to accelerate the company’s growth.
Advertising spend on out-of-home sites is currently some $1.7 billion globally, with the digital segment, which is proven to drive sales faster than traditional advertising, growing at some 40% per annum.
EnQii CEO, Ajay Chowdhury, says: “We see fantastic growth opportunities in digital out-of-home advertising and are very happy to see this significant commitment from two of Europe’s leading VCs that will help us take full advantage of these opportunities. While we have had very strong organic growth over the last year, this level of investment and the quality of the investors gives us the additional capacity to be more agressive in both opportunity development and in serving our customers’ needs. The roll-out of digital screens at places of interest has just begun, and EnQii has the capability, from our offices in New York, Toronto, London, Hong Kong and Shanghai, to manage this.”
Roy Merritt of Amadeus adds: “EnQii’s business model is to combine its leading-edge technology platform with a real understanding of customer needs, helping its clients to maximise their revenues and building deep and long-lasting relationships. We believe that EnQii’s outstanding management team is well-placed to build on its already strong global market position, and are delighted to support them in doing that.”
Frank Boehnke from Wellington Partners stresses the market opportunity: “Digital merchandising at the point-of-sale is a highly efficient way of communicating with customers for advertisers and retailers. Therefore, the installed base of DOOH screens will more than triple in the next three years. I am sure that EnQii will benefit hugely from such tremendous market growth.”
Carolyn Prowse from Ithmaar Bank says: “We invested in EnQii last year and are very pleased to see its growth since the investment. With Amadeus and Wellington joining us as shareholders we remain confident that EnQii will have a very strong future.”
The Amadeus team on this investment was Roy Merritt and Jason Pinto. The Wellington team was Frank Boehnke and Ernst Mannheimer. The Ithmaar Bank team was Carolyn Prowse and Scott Cresswell. Advisers to the investors were: Taylor Wessing and Trowers & Hamlins (Legal) and Baker Tilly (Accounting); and to EnQii : Heller Ehrman (Legal) and PriceWaterhouseCoopers (Tax).
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