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Partech Ventures invests in Ecovadis

Rating your environmental, social and ethical performance.

Paris, 14 December 2016 - GP Bullhound, the European technology investment bank, acted as the exclusive financial advisor to EcoVadis on a growth equity investment of €30m from Partech Ventures.

EcoVadis, the leading platform for environmental, social and ethical performance ratings for global supply chains, servicing over 30,000 customers in 110 countries, employs 320 professionals worldwide and has been growing organically by 50% annually since inception 10 years ago. Its ratings and scorecards are being used by over 150 of the world’s largest supply chains representing more than $1 trillion in annual procurement spend.

This minority investment is the first outside capital for EcoVadis since its founding in 2007. It will be used to accelerate worldwide adoption of EcoVadis’ supplier Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) ratings, to advance the reliability and value delivered in its ratings, and to further invest in core technologies of its platform, through in-house R&D and partnerships with best-of-breed tech start-ups.

“As a transatlantic investment fund, Partech is the ideal partner as we scale,” said Frederic Trinel, Co-CEO of EcoVadis. He continues: “GP Bullhound has been a great advisor in this journey and has been invaluable in identifying the best partner for this investment, and ensuring a successful transaction for both parties.”

Guillaume Bonneton, Partner at GP Bullhound and Head of its Paris office, commented: “We are proud to have advised Ecovadis and their founders on one of the largest SaaS transactions in 2016 in France. Through this investment we are convinced Partech will be a great partner in their journey, and help Ecovadis cement their leadership as the global standard for supplier sustainability ratings.”

This represents the completion of GP Bullhound’s 20th transaction in 2016 and further highlights the firm’s commitment to working with category leaders in the Software sector, following on from previous successful transactions and investments in the area, including Emric (sale to Tieto), Signavio (Investment from Summit Partners), and Multiposting (Sale to SAP), among others.

Enquiries
For enquiries please contact: Guillaume Bonneton, Partner, at guillaume.bonneton@gpbullhound.com or Joy Sioufi, Vice President, at joy.sioufi@gpbullhound.com

About GP Bullhound
GP Bullhound is a leading European technology investment bank with a passion for entrepreneurship. Founded in 1999, the firm today has offices in London, San Francisco, Stockholm, Berlin, Manchester and Paris. The firm’s advisory team has completed over 230 M&A and Capital transactions to date, working with category leaders including Essence, Avito, Delivery Hero, Fjord, King Digital Entertainment, Pingdom, Innogames, Spotify and many more. Through its principal investment team, GP Bullhound provides institutions, family offices and entrepreneurs with access to some of the most ambitious privately-held technology and media companies in Europe. Furthermore, the firm’s events and speaking activities bring together thousands of Europe’s leading digital entrepreneurs and technology investors throughout the year, and its thought-leading research is read by decision makers globally, and regularly cited in leading newspapers and publications. For more information, please visit www.gpbullhound.com, follow on Twitter @GPBullhound or watch our video here.

About EcoVadis
EcoVadis is the first collaborative platform providing sustainability ratings and performance improvement tools for global supply chains. EcoVadis’ easy-to-use CSR scorecards help companies to monitor suppliers’ environmental, ethical, and social practices across 150 purchasing categories and 110 countries. Over 150 industry leaders such as Nestlé, GSK, Heineken, Michelin, Johnson & Johnson, Schneider Electric, l’Oréal, BASF, and Subway, and over 30,000 of their trading partners use EcoVadis to reduce risk and drive sustainability and innovation.
www.ecovadis.com On Twitter: @Ecovadis On LinkedIn: Linkedin/EcoVadis


About Partech Ventures

Founded in 1982 in Silicon Valley, Partech Ventures is a global investment firm with a team spread across offices in San Francisco, Paris and Berlin. Most Partners have been entrepreneurs themselves or have held management positions within tech companies. The partnership acts and invests as a single team, helping entrepreneurs build fast-growing tech and digital companies addressing large markets across multiple continents. Partech Ventures partners with entrepreneurs at the seed (Partech Entrepreneur), venture (Partech International) and/or growth (Partech Growth) stages. Companies backed by Partech Ventures have completed 21 initial public offerings and more than 50 major M&A transactions with leading international companies. Since 2012, the team has built a pioneering business development platform fostering synergies and business relationships between entrepreneurs and strategic partners.
Preqin, an independent global research firm, has ranked Partech Ventures as one of the ten most consistent venture capital firms in the world, and the only European VC in the top 25.
http://www.partechventures.com

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