Main Capital Partners closes 6‑month dual fundraising at €2.44 billion hard cap

The Hague — Main Capi­tal Part­ners (“Main”), a Euro­pean inves­tor specia­li­zing in enter­prise soft­ware, announ­ces the successful closing of its two latest buyout funds, Main Capi­tal VIII and Main Foun­da­tion II, which have reached a total volume of EUR 2.44 billion in capi­tal commit­ments. With Main Capi­tal VIII and Main Foun­da­tion II, which have roughly doubled in size compared to the previous funds, Main’s total assets under manage­ment have risen to around EUR 6 billion.

As with previous fund­rai­sings, Main recor­ded strong parti­ci­pa­tion from its exis­ting inves­tor base. Inves­tors’ contin­ued confi­dence in Main is demons­tra­ted by a remar­kable re-up rate of 115%. In addi­tion to rene­wed invest­ments from exis­ting inves­tors, Main also recei­ved commit­ments from new inves­tors tota­ling around €1 billion, inclu­ding seve­ral renow­ned insti­tu­tio­nal inves­tors such as APG (on behalf of its client ABP), Tecta Invest and Texas County and District Reti­re­ment System. Alre­ady active inves­tors such as Hamil­ton Lane have signi­fi­cantly increased their capi­tal commitment.

Fund­rai­sing for Main Capi­tal VIII and Main Foun­da­tion II began in Octo­ber 2023 with a target volume of EUR 1.6 billion and EUR 400 million respec­tively. The dual fund­rai­sing saw considera­ble demand from both exis­ting and new inves­tors world­wide, and Main was able to successfully complete the two fund­rai­sings, with their respec­tive hard caps of EUR 1.9 billion and EUR 500 million, within just under six months. The short period of time within which both funds were reali­zed in an over­all diffi­cult finan­cing situa­tion and the high level of inves­tor inte­rest, which signi­fi­cantly excee­ded the funds’ hard caps, confirm Main’s contin­ued strong invest­ment perfor­mance and its highly specia­li­zed focus on invest­ments in enter­prise software.

Main is a specia­li­zed buyout inves­tor in the enter­prise soft­ware sector, with a 20-year track record and broad market coverage in the mid-market, inves­t­ing between EUR 5 and 150 million in profi­ta­ble small to mid-sized soft­ware compa­nies. Main’s port­fo­lio compa­nies are supported by its in-house Market Intel­li­gence and Perfor­mance Excel­lence team, which provi­des access to proprie­tary data and rese­arch as well as best prac­ti­ces in the areas of go-to-market stra­te­gies, tech­no­logy, finance and M&A. Thanks to a team of more than 70 experts in the core markets Bene­lux, DACH, the Nordic count­ries and the USA, its local presence and the orga­niza­tion of topic-speci­­fic events, Main is closely connec­ted with the local

soft­ware ecosys­tems, allo­wing exclu­sive rela­ti­onships to be estab­lished with soft­ware foun­ders and entre­pre­neurs. Over the last few years, Main has become one of the most active inves­tors in Europe. In 2023, Main reali­zed well over 40 tran­sac­tions, inclu­ding 12 invest­ments in new plat­form invest­ments, 26 add-ons and 6 disposals.

Throug­hout the company’s history, Main has reali­zed almost 30 exits with a weigh­ted average return of more than four times and a loss rate of well below 0.5%.
Main’s acti­vi­ties focus on the deve­lo­p­ment of larger, scalable and inter­na­tio­nally profi­ta­ble soft­ware groups within speci­fic product markets, which are expan­ded both through orga­nic growth and acqui­si­ti­ons. Main opera­tes across borders in around 10 product markets, inclu­ding health­tech, govtech, HRtech and cyber­se­cu­rity. Signi­fi­cant invest­ments in the area of cyber­se­cu­rity include Point­s­harp (SE), Oribi (NL) and Inverid (NL). In HRtech, Main is inves­t­ing in BCS (NL), Text­ker­nel (NL) and Perbi­lity (DE). Main’s acti­vi­ties in the health­tech sector include compa­nies such as Enova­tion (NL) and SDB Groep (NL), LuxSci (USA), Alfa eCare (SE), Buch­ner (DE), UHB (DE) and Oiva Health (FI). An exam­ple of a major govtech invest­ment is xxllnc (NL), a large SaaS govtech group with over 300 employees that provi­des produc­ti­vity tools for local muni­ci­pa­li­ties and soft­ware for tax and social affairs.

Charly Zwem­s­tra, Foun­der and Chief Invest­ment Offi­cer at Main (photo © Main Capi­tal), said: “Main was one of the early play­ers in the Euro­pean soft­ware space, focu­sing on buyouts of profi­ta­ble and robust enter­prise soft­ware compa­nies to build larger inter­na­tio­nal soft­ware groups. We are very proud of our 20-year track record and the contin­ued support and trust placed in us by a very insti­tu­tio­nal and global LP base. The successful comple­tion of Main Capi­tal VIII and Main Foun­da­tion II conso­li­da­tes our posi­tion as Euro­pean market leader for soft­ware buyouts. With the help of the new funds, we conti­nue to play a key role in conso­li­da­ting the frag­men­ted soft­ware market, within which we are buil­ding inter­na­tio­nally leading Euro­pean and trans­at­lan­tic soft­ware companies.”

Jorn de Ruij­ter, Head of Inves­tor Rela­ti­ons and Invest­ment Direc­tor at Main, said: “Closing two funds well above the origi­nal target and almost doubling the size of the previous funds in just six months under­lines Main’s excep­tio­nal track record and close rela­ti­onship with our LP base. We are grateful for the strong and contin­ued support from exis­ting and new LPs. Main’s proven approach to buil­ding larger, more resi­li­ent soft­ware groups has enab­led us to deli­ver consis­tent top quar­tile returns for our LPs and we will conti­nue to do so for these two new funds as well as for future funds.”

Main did not use a place­ment agent for the fund­rai­sing, Loyens & Loeff acted as legal advisor.

About Main Capi­tal Partners

Main Capi­tal Part­ners is a leading soft­ware inves­tor in the DACH region, the Bene­lux count­ries, the Nordic count­ries and the United States with assets under manage­ment of around EUR 6 billion. Main has more than 20 years of expe­ri­ence in streng­thening soft­ware compa­nies and works closely with the manage­ment teams in its port­fo­lio as a stra­te­gic part­ner to create profi­ta­ble growth and larger, successful soft­ware groups. As a leading soft­ware inves­tor mana­ging private equity funds in Northwest Europe and North America, Main employs 70 people in its offices in The Hague, Düssel­dorf, Stock­holm, Antwerp and a branch office in Boston. Main mana­ges an active port­fo­lio of over 45 soft­ware groups. This port­fo­lio employs a total of more than 12,000 people. Through the Main Social Insti­tute, Main supports students with grants and scho­lar­ships to study IT and compu­ter science at tech­ni­cal univer­si­ties and univer­si­ties of applied scien­ces. www.main.nl