The Manager of HgCapital Trust, HgCapital, has announced that it has made an investment in AUVESY GmbH, which it describes as a leading global provider of version control and change management software solutions for automated industrial environments. As is customary, the terms of the transaction have not been disclosed and the transaction is subject to completion, however, HgCapital Trust (HGT) will invest approximately £7.4 million in AUVESY, alongside other institutional clients of HgCapital through the Hg Mercury 3 Fund. As part of the transaction, the AUVESY management team will maintain a significant investment in the business whilst the former majority owner Brockhaus Private Equity has fully exited its position.
AUVESY is the first investment from the Hg Mercury 3 Fund and represents the 8th investment in Hg’s Automation & Engineering cluster focus, including the recently announced agreement with Trackunit. HgCapiotal’s announcement says that its investment will support AUVESY’s position in a growing sector, which it says sits an important inflection point as shopfloors and industrial devices are getting increasingly digitalised, requiring version control solutions from a technical, cybersecurity, compliance and, for certain industries, even a regulatory perspective.
Liquid resources post-transaction
HGT says that its liquid resources available for future deployment (including all announced transactions, the proposed full-year dividend payable in May 2021 and equity raised via tap issuance) are estimated to be £129 million (10% of the 28 February 2021 pro-forma NAV of £1.3 billion). In addition, HGT has access to a £200 million standby facility, which is currently undrawn. The investment in Auvesy will reduce HGT’s outstanding commitments to invest in Hg transactions to approximately £493 million (37% of the 28 February 2021 pro-forma NAV).
About Auvesy
Founded in 2007 and headquartered in Germany, AUVESY is a provider of version control software for smart production machinery and other industrial Internet of Things (IoT) devices. AUVESY manages over 5 million industrial IoT devices across 45 countries, serving over 700 customers. Software developed by AUVESY enables its customers with automated production facilities and other smart machinery to automatically backup, secure and centralise their machine data and executable code. Customers also benefit from fully-featured change management, detailed change detection, easily comprehensible documentation, and a high degree of user-friendliness.
HgCapital says that all machine level data is easy to backup and access when needed, simplifying maintenance, and freeing up time for optimising production processes. Reflecting this, it says that downtime is significantly reduced, due to easy and reliable code management, trouble shooting and disaster recovery. The AUVESY software product “versiondog” is in use across a wide range of sectors, including automotive, chemical, energy, food & beverage, pharma and utilities.
Comments from Dr. Tim Weckerle, CEO of Auvesy
“This is positive news for everyone at AUVESY and I thank all my colleagues who have worked so hard to get us to this very strong position. We are delighted to be partnering with a software expert in Hg. We see their operational experience and expertise in areas such as international sales, marketing and M&A being hugely beneficial to the future growth of the firm, all supporting our ‘Never Stand Still’ mission to ensure that our customers around the world experience less down time in their production.”
Comments from Benedikt Joeris, Director at Hg
“AUVESY is a highly innovative business, building a leading position in industrial IoT version control software globally. We see significant growth potential in this sector, both across new industry verticals and expansion into additional use cases. AUVESY is incredibly well positioned to benefit from this potential. Its excellent software enjoys high customer satisfaction and loyalty due to the efficiency increase and risk protection it provides.”