Exit: LEA Partners sells IDL to insightsoftware

Karls­ruhe, Germany — Tech­no­logy inves­tor LEA Part­ners (“LEA”) is selling IDL, a leading provi­der of finan­cial perfor­mance manage­ment soft­ware (FPM), to insightsoft­ware, a global leader in finan­cial report­ing and enter­prise perfor­mance manage­ment solu­ti­ons. Behind insightsoft­ware are the two private equity inves­tors TA Asso­cia­tes and Genstar Capi­tal. The parties have agreed not to disc­lose the key points of the tran­sac­tion. The closing of the tran­sac­tion is subject to anti­trust clearance and is expec­ted in the course of this year. This is the second exit for LEA from the €200m B2B tech fund focu­sed on soft­ware compa­nies from the DACH region.

IDL has specia­li­zed in the deve­lo­p­ment of FPM soft­ware solu­ti­ons for conso­li­da­tion, plan­ning, analy­sis and report­ing since 1990. Clas­si­fied by the analyst firm BARC as a market leader with a top posi­tion in the area of “Port­fo­lio Capa­bi­li­ties”, IDL serves corpo­rate groups and inter­na­tio­nally opera­ting medium-sized compa­nies in a wide range of industries.

LEA’s invest­ment was made in early 2019 based on its stra­tegy of inves­t­ing in leading soft­ware compa­nies with high shares of recur­ring reve­nue and substan­tial growth poten­tial. LEA was convin­ced by IDL’s unique market posi­tion of provi­ding mission-criti­­cal soft­ware to a broad and loyal custo­mer base. LEA supported IDL in its trans­for­ma­tion from a foun­­der-led company to a leading FPM provi­der in the German-spea­king region. Key initia­ti­ves here were the expan­sion of the manage­ment team, the estab­lish­ment of an indi­rect part­ner sales chan­nel, and the imple­men­ta­tion of a compre­hen­sive M&A stra­tegy. IDL was able to signi­fi­cantly expand its custo­mer base during this period and signi­fi­cantly acce­le­rate growth in reve­nues and EBITDA.

Bern­ward Egenolf, foun­der of IDL, said, “Our decis­ion to select LEA as a part­ner for IDL’s next stage of deve­lo­p­ment has proven abso­lut­ely correct. We were able to launch decisive stra­te­gic initia­ti­ves and complete our product port­fo­lio through targe­ted acqui­si­ti­ons. The expe­ri­ence LEA has brought to the table has been instru­men­tal in acce­le­ra­ting our growth. We are now looking forward to bene­fiting from insightsoftware’s global network as we conti­nue to internationalize.”

Sebas­tian Müller, foun­der of LEA, added: “We were able to inten­si­vely support IDL in a variety of stra­te­gic initia­ti­ves in the areas of tech­no­logy, sales, marke­ting and M&A, thus contri­bu­ting to a signi­fi­cant acce­le­ra­tion of growth. We have enjoyed our part­ner­ship with IDL and wish the entire team much success with their new part­ner insightsoftware.”

Follo­wing BELLIN’s exit to Coupa Soft­ware in June 2020, the tran­sac­tion repres­ents the second exit from the €200 million LEA Mittel­stands­part­ner fund. LEA was advi­sed by GCA Altium and Milbank in the transaction.

About LEA Partners
LEA Part­ners, as an entre­pre­neu­rial equity part­ner, supports foun­ders and manage­ment teams at diffe­rent stages of deve­lo­p­ment in their growth and achie­ve­ment of a leading market posi­tion. Based in Karls­ruhe, one of the largest tech­no­logy clus­ters in Europe, LEA Part­ners has mana­ged invest­ments in nume­rous tech­no­logy compa­nies since 2002. With two invest­ment vehic­les for all company phases and a strong network of opera­tio­nal sector experts as well as stra­te­gic part­ners, LEA Part­ners can contri­bute substan­tial added value to the deve­lo­p­ment of tech­no­logy companies.