team.blue, which is Europe’s leading digital enabler for entrepreneurs and SMBs, announced a significant investment from Canada Pension Plan Investment Board (CPP Investments).
team.blue continues expanding its product offering to cover all end-to-end needs of customers, helping them remain relevant, competitive, and successful in their digital journey. And these solutions are designed to enhance security, ensure GDPR compliance, boost visitor attraction and conversion rates, improve customer engagement through various marketing tools, and assist in online and offline commerce strategies.
The deal values team.blue at €4.8 billion, making it one of the largest privately owned technology companies in Europe. And this investment represents an important milestone for the team.blue group.
Now team.blue has over 2,500 fully committed colleagues, including many tech entrepreneurs that have joined, and thrived, with the business over the past five years to continue its dynamic culture. Plus, team.blue is actively investing in innovative products by joining forces with leading European SaaS companies that share the same vision.
CPP Investments committed about €550 million to acquire about a 20% interest in team.blue. Hg remains the largest single investor in team.blue.
team.blue was advised by Arma Partners, EY, Bain, Deloitte, Linklaters and BearingPoint. team.blue’s shareholders were advised by Harris Williams, KPMG, MacFarlanes and Norbruis Clement; and CPP Investments was advised by Kirkland & Ellis, JP Morgan, OC&C, Palo Alto Strategy Group and KPMG.
KEY QUOTES:
“This is a truly significant moment for our team and the many entrepreneurs who have joined us over the years. We are delighted to welcome CPP Investments, a leading global institutional investor with values that closely align with our own. CPP Investment’s approach as a long-term patient capital investor is perfectly suited to our vision for sustained growth. Alongside our existing shareholders, CPP Investments recognises the growth ahead, underpinned by our plan to provide increasingly relevant online tools for businesses. We thank Hg for their continued support and warmly welcome CPP Investments as we pursue our ambitious growth plans together.”
– Jonas Dhaenens, Founder and President, Claudio Corbetta, CEO, and Dawn Marriott, Executive Chair of team.blue
“team.blue operates in an attractive, resilient and growing online presence sector. Under its current leadership, the business has executed on a successful M&A strategy to expand its product offerings and local presence across multiple European countries. We look forward to working alongside Hg, a long-standing partner to CPP Investments, and the team.blue founders and leadership team, to support the platform as it continues on its journey to deliver on multiple growth vectors by expanding its portfolio of SaaS solutions, while delivering attractive risk-adjusted returns for CPP contributors and beneficiaries.”
– Hafiz Lalani, Managing Director, Global Head of Direct Private Equity, CPP Investments
“It’s been incredible to see our thesis play out over the last five years, with team.blue evolving into one of the largest tech platforms in Europe. Together we are building a multibillion category leader, offering multiple propositions for an ever-wider group of SMBs, enabling both online presence and better business success. We are proud of these achievements, partnering with multiple entrepreneurs who are now part of the group, and with ambitious plans to welcome many more in years to come. And today we welcome CPP Investments as a new partner, whose well-placed trust in a highly capable management supports a strong outlook for growth.”
– Joris Van Gool, Nick Jordan and Matthijs Deroo at Hg
