Hg agrees to sale of Transporeon for €1.88 billion

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A highly successful partnership between Hg and the Transporeon team has led to continued strong revenue and EBITDA growth since 2019, furthering Transporeon’s mission to bring transportation in sync with the world.

Ulm, Germany and London, United Kingdom. 12 December 2022.  Hg, a leading software and services investor, today announces the sale of Transporeon, a leading cloud-based transportation management software platform, to Trimble in a transaction valuing the business at an enterprise value of €1.88 billion.

Transporeon provides a leading cloud-based logistics and transport management platform, solving 360-degree freight problems by enabling automation, real-time insights and collaboration on €48bn of annual freight.  This is all handled on a modern SaaS platform which enables more efficient tendering, dispatching, scheduling, real time tracking and better communication between the around 1,400 enterprises looking to move freight and close to 145 000 carriers – all whilst helping to reduce 30% waste in global transportation and to lower CO2 emissions.

A 20+ year focus on software businesses across Europe and North America led to Hg following the business and engaging with the team for almost a decade prior to investing in 2019. Since then, the business has seen strong growth and continued margin expansion across various cycles.

This robust performance has been enabled by continuous product investment and strategic initiatives, whilst also adding new offerings to Transporeon’s suite both through additional partnerships and five strategic tuck-in acquisitions.​

The past three years has significantly accelerated Transporeon forward in our mission to bring transportation in sync with the world. Innovation in our products and an expansion of the business has meant we have built a remarkable platform in a rapidly growing sector, with solutions that are in high demand globally. This would not have been possible without the software expertise delivered by Hg. The management team thank everyone at Hg and Transporeon who have worked hard together to put us in this very advantageous position”.

Stephan Sieber, Chief Executive Officer at Transporeon

“We tracked Transporeon for many years, impressed with its globally unique logistics network, solving real supply chain issues in a heavily under-digitized sector. It has been a hugely rewarding, working initially with the founders Marc and Martin, and then with Stephan and the team to build on this. We’re particularly proud to have enabled several new solutions which have proved immensely valuable to customers and the wider global community, like AI-based analytics and prediction tools to facilitate carbon footprint reduction, whilst also expanding our addressable sector via strategic acquisitions. We wish the team the very best wishes as part of Trimble”

Stefan Margolis, Partner at Hg

“Transporeon is at the forefront of freight industry digitalisation and its cloud-based solutions continue to reduce complexity and increase efficiency for a large fragmented global logistics sector. We’re delighted for the team. We’re also proud to continue to deliver on our purpose, to return funds back to clients, with $7 billion returned during 2022.”

Justin von Simson, Managing Partner at Hg

The sale marks the fourth full Hg realisation to a strategic buyer in the last 12 months, having previously sold Medifox to ResMed, Allocate Software to RL Datix and itm8 which merged with AddPro, all contributing to over $7 billion collectively returned to clients in the last 12 months.

The transaction is expected to close in the first half of 2023, subject to customary closing conditions including regulatory approvals.

For further information, please contact:

For Hg
Tom Eckersley, Hg
+44 (0)20 8396 0930
tom.eckersley@hgcapital.com

Azadeh Varzi, Brunswick Group
+44 (0)207 404 5959
hg@brunswickgroup.com

About Transporeon

At Transporeon, our mission is to bring transportation in sync with the world. We power the largest global freight network of +1,300 industrial shippers, +100 large retailers and +145,000 carriers and logistics service providers. They execute 220,000 transactions per day on our platform and process around €48bn in freight spend per year.

Our leading Transportation Management Platform connects all actors along the supply chain. It facilitates collaboration between the different parties, helps to automate manual processes and provides valuable real-time insights. The modular Application Hubs solve specific logistics challenges and range from freight sourcing over transport execution and dock and yard management to freight audit and payment. Data hubs provide insights into logistics operations, market developments and carbon emissions, next to ensuring transparency in the supply chain through visibility. Our platform works across all geographies and all modes of transportation, empowering logistics teams to move, manage and monitor freight.

Transporeon is headquartered in Ulm, Germany, and maintains 18 offices around the globe with +1,400 employees across 27 countries. For more information visit www.transporeon.com.

About Hg

Hg is a platform for software and services champions, focused on backing businesses that change how we all do business. Deep technology expertise, complemented by vertical application specialisation and dedicated operational support, provides a compelling proposition to management teams looking to scale their businesses.

Hg has funds under management of over $55 billion, with an investment team of over 160 professionals, including a portfolio team of almost 50 operators, providing practical support to help our businesses to realise their growth ambitions. Based in London, Munich, New York, Paris and San Francisco, Hg has a portfolio of over 46 software and technology businesses, worth over $100 billion aggregate enterprise value, with over 90,000 employees globally, growing at over 20% per year.

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