Gimv invests EUR 4 million in German sustainability management software company PE INTERNATIONAL AG
Gimv invests EUR 4 million in Germany based company PE INTERNATIONAL AG, a leading provider of sustainability management software and expert consulting services, in an aggregate financing round worth EUR 8 million. Siemens Venture Capital, the corporate venture capital organization of Siemens, acts as co-investor in this round, investing the remainder. The financing will be used to support the company’s ambitious growth plans to further strengthen its market position and become the leading vendor of sustainability IT platforms in a fast growing market.
PE INTERNATIONAL (www.pe-international.com) was founded in 1991 and today is the international market leader in software solutions, strategic and expert services in the field of sustainability management. The company offers two important software solutions, with the GaBi Software for product sustainability and the SoFi Software for corporate sustainability. These software packages leverage an extensive and consistent database on environmental data, based on the accumulated know-how of almost 20 years in the business. Moreover, PE INTERNATIONAL complements its sustainability solutions for product Life Cycle Assessment (LCA), Carbon and Energy Management and integrated Sustainability Reporting with strategic consulting services for all dimensions of environmental impacts (e.g. water footprint, soil erosion, acidification and many others).
PE INTERNATIONAL has built up a very impressive customer portfolio of more than 1000 companies, including many blue chip multinationals and world sector organizations (such as Allianz, Bayer, Daimler, Deutsche Post DHL, Rockwool, Siemens, Toyota, ThyssenKrupp and Volkswagen). The company is headquartered in Stuttgart, Germany, and employs more than 150 people in 14 different countries.
The market for sustainability has already grown significantly over the last few years and will continue to grow fast driven by (i) increasing pressure from investors for better disclosures of companies’ sustainability management, (ii) regulations on corporate reporting standards and product compliance rules and (iii) growing consumer demand and supply chain pressure for comparable data on environmental impact. Additionally, businesses seek the benefits of sustainability regarding cost reduction and competitive advantage. This financing round will allow the management to support its growth strategy by further developing its fully integrated sustainability management IT platform and its market channels.
Michael Betz, CEO of PE INTERNATIONAL states: “PE enables clients to understand and improve their product and corporate sustainability performance and to be successful in the market place. With these strong investment partners, our company solidifies its leading position as enterprise sustainability solution vendor. This investment round now accelerates the delivery of our cutting-edge sustainability IT platform, the extension of our global organization and partner network.”
Hansjörg Sage, Partner at Gimv, will hold a seat in the board of directors. He comments on the transaction: ”Corporate and product sustainability management is one of the major growth markets within cleantech. There is an increasing demand for better solutions to manage and to monitor sustainability, both at a product and at a corporate level. With PE INTERNATIONAL´s position as the leading specialized player with longest experience and most extensive international presence, we are convinced that the company is exceedingly well positioned to address this growing market.”
With this investment, PE INTERNATIONAL becomes the fifth new venture capital investment of Gimv since the beginning of 2010. It follows investments in RES Software, Private Outlet, McPhy Energy and Jenavalve.
All parties involved have decided not to disclose any additional financial details on this transaction.