Amadeus Capital Partners and Wellington Partners have invested $18 million in a Series B round financing in EnQii Holdings Ltd, a global leader in the management of digital out-of-home (DOOH) advertising and merchandising networks. Roy Merritt, Partner at Amadeus, and Wellington General Partner, Frank Boehnke, will join the board of the company. The investors will join Ithmaar Bank, Kingdom of Bahrain, EnQii's original investor. Carolyn Prowse, Managing Director, from Ithmaar Bank will also join the board.
EnQii works in partnership with advertising networks and retailers, providing a full managed service of design, installation, technology and operation of web-enabled digital displays. The company has over 100 customers in 14 countries around the world, who typically operate substantial estates of screens ranging from large LED or digital billboards to smaller shelf-located screens in retail environments. The new financing will be used to accelerate the company's growth.
Advertising spend on out-of-home sites is currently some $1.7 billion globally, with the digital segment, which is proven to drive sales faster than traditional advertising, growing at some 40% per annum.
EnQii CEO, Ajay Chowdhury, says: "We see fantastic growth opportunities in digital out-of-home advertising and are very happy to see this significant commitment from two of Europe's leading VCs that will help us take full advantage of these opportunities. While we have had very strong organic growth over the last year, this level of investment and the quality of the investors gives us the additional capacity to be more aggressive in both opportunity development and in serving our customers' needs. The roll-out of digital screens at places of interest has just begun, and EnQii has the capability, from our offices in New York, Toronto, London, Hong Kong and Shanghai, to manage this."
Roy Merritt of Amadeus adds: "EnQii's business model is to combine its leading-edge technology platform with a real understanding of customer needs, helping its clients to maximise their revenues and building deep and long-lasting relationships. We believe that EnQii's outstanding management team is well-placed to build on its already strong global market position, and are delighted to support them in doing that."
Frank Boehnke from Wellington Partners stresses the market opportunity: "Digital merchandising at the point-of-sale is a highly efficient way of communicating with customers for advertisers and retailers. Therefore, the installed base of DOOH screens wills more than triple in the next three years. I am sure that EnQii will benefit hugely from such tremendous market growth."
Carolyn Prowse from Ithmaar Bank says: "We invested in EnQii last year and are very pleased to see its growth since the investment. With Amadeus and Wellington joining us as shareholders we remain confident that EnQii will have a very strong future."
The Amadeus team on this investment was Roy Merritt and Jason Pinto. The Wellington team was Frank Boehnke and Ernst Mannheimer. The Ithmaar Bank team was Carolyn Prowse and Scott Cresswell. Advisers to the investors were: Taylor Wessing and Trowers & Hamlins (Legal) and Baker Tilly (Accounting); and to EnQii: Heller Ehrman (Legal) and PriceWaterhouseCoopers (Tax).
NOTES TO EDITORS
About Wellington Partners (www.wellington-partners.com)
Wellington Partners is one the most successful pan-European venture capital firms. With € 800 million under management and offices in London, Munich, Palo Alto and Zurich, the firm invests into companies throughout Europe that have the potential to become global leaders, in the areas of Information Technology, Media Convergence, Cleantech and Life Science. Since 1998, Wellington Partners has invested in more than 100 companies in Europe, including now publicly traded Actelion, SAF and XING and successful privately held companies like Alando (acquired by eBay), Ciao (acquired by Microsoft) and ImmobilienScout24 (acquired by Deutsche Telekom).
About Amadeus (www.amadeuscapital.com)
Amadeus is one of Europe's leading technology investors. Since its inception in 1997, the firm has backed over 60 companies covering computer hardware and software, mobile and fixed communications technologies, medical technologies and clean technologies. Investments include CSR, producing single chip bluetooth radios for short range connections and floated on the London Stock Exchange in 2004, Optos, a manufacturer of laser retinal scanners which had a successful IPO on the London Stock Exchange in 2006, PacketFront, a Swedish company providing systems to manage end-to-end delivery of multiple broadband services, Valista, an electronic payments company and Solexa, the developer of next generation genetic analysis systems, merged with Illumina Inc.
Amadeus Capital Partners Ltd is authorised and regulated by the Financial Services Authority.
Registered office: Mount Pleasant House, 2 Mount Pleasant, Cambridge CB3 0RN, UK. Registered in England no: 3392685.
About Ithmaar Bank, Kingdom of Bahrain (www.ithmaarbank.com)
The Ithmaar banking group consists of: Ithmaar Bank, Shamil Bank, Solidarity (an Islamic insurance company), Faisal Private Bank (Switzerland), Faysal Bank Limited (Pakistan), First Leasing Bank and Ithmaar Development Company. The group's services, including investment, private, retail, and commercial banking, private equity, mergers & acquisition advice, takaful, leasing, and real estate development, form a 360 degrees value chain that embraces the entire spectrum of banking and financial services.
