ENENTO GROUP PLC, STOCK EXCHANGE RELEASE ON 24 JUNE 2021 AT 8.00 A.M. EEST
Enento Group makes a strategic investment to add a unique Sales Intelligence service offering by acquiring a part of Goava Sales Intelligence AB with possibility to take majority
Enento Group Plc has signed an agreement to acquire part of and become the largest shareholder of the Swedish sales intelligence services company Goava Sales Intelligence AB by subscribing to new preference shares in the company. Within the agreement, Enento in the first stage on 24 June 2021 acquires a 38,3 % (35,1 % fully diluted) shareholding in the company, and at the same time agrees to complete subsequent preference share subscriptions provided that the company fulfills certain preconditions laid out in the business plan, as well as acquires a purchase option to acquire all outstanding shares in the company after a mutually agreed business plan period ending in year 2024 and aiming at gaining a significant market position for the services in the Nordics. The subscription price of the preference shares is approximately SEK 38,4 million and will be paid in cash.
The transaction both strengthens Enento’s capabilities to accelerate its unstructured and refined data based new service development, as well as strengthens Enento’s position in the emerging and fast-growing Sales Intelligence domain. Companies in the Nordics and wider are heavily investing in CRM platforms, and Sales Intelligence service offering is a means to increase the return on those investments by highly adding value to the CRM data utilization by connecting companies’ internal data on its clients to external information to provide intelligence and insights to boost B2B sales and client interactions.
Goava Sales Intelligence AB, headquartered in Stockholm in Sweden, was founded in 2016 and currently employs 14 persons as well as contracts 15 external software developers. The company is led by its founders as well as management team with a considerable ownership stake in the company. Goava currently services more than 140 customers mainly in the Swedish market. Goava’s Sales Intelligence service offering aims to improve sales effectiveness by giving B2B sales representatives more time to focus on selling to the right companies. Goava’s services connect the client’s own intelligence on its customer base from its CRM to the open and public data as well as structured official data on every company in the market to create advanced analytics driven lead recommendations and segment insights.
Enento and Goava have identified considerable synergies in the deal which accelerates the growth of both companies. Enento’s equity investment in Goava will be used to significantly ramp-up the sales and customer success organization resources at Goava as well as the R&D resourcing to accelerate customer-centric product development. Goava will benefit from incorporating Enento’s best-in-class Nordic structured company information to its services, as well as from the synergies of utilizing Enento’s strong market position in the Nordics with access to qualified leads and the high traffic to Enento’s freemium company information sites. Through the partnership, Enento will gain access to Goava’s unstructured data and data refining capabilities to accelerate its service development.
“This investment positions Enento Group ahead of competition in the strategic goal of becoming the Nordic leader within business information through combining best-in-class structured and unstructured data capabilities along with positioning Enento strongly in a fast-growing new business information market domain of Sales Intelligence”, says Heikki Koivula, Enento Group Director of the Business Insight Business Area.
“Relevance is key for modern B2B sales. Goava wants to give every Nordic B2B salesperson the opportunity to sell efficiently and data-driven. Partnering with Enento gives Goava best-in-class company data as well as the possibility to reach new users through leading marketing channels such as Allabolag and Proff. We believe Goava’s competence within AI and Sales Tech is a perfect match with Enento’s wide reach and high-quality data”, says Jonas Ehne, CEO and co-founder of Goava Sales Intelligence AB.
Goava Sales Intelligence AB will be treated as an associated company in Enento Group’s financial reporting. The transaction is not expected to have material impact to Enento Group’s financial year 2021 results.
ENENTO GROUP PLC
Additional information:
Jukka Ruuska
CEO
Tel. +358 10 270 7111
Distribution:
Nasdaq Helsinki
Major media
enento.com/investors
Enento Group is a Nordic knowledge company powering society with intelligence since 1905. We collect and transform data into intelligence and knowledge used in interactions between people, businesses and societies. Our digital services, data and information empower companies and consumers in their daily digital decision processes, as well as financial processes and sales and marketing processes. Approximately 425 people are working for Enento Group in Finland, Norway, Sweden and Denmark. The Group’s net sales for 2020 was 151.3 MEUR. Enento Group is listed on Nasdaq Helsinki with the trading code ENENTO.