Private Equity

Digital disruption, rapid growth and sustained profitability

AnaCap implements an investment philosophy that is founded on our background as entrepreneurs, operators and investors across the multiple sectors. AnaCap uses intense operational engagement complemented by active buy and build programmes to drive growth and profit margins.

We focus on specialist areas within the mid-market sector where business model innovation and implementation of technology offers the highest growth and profit potential.

Through tailored operational models, AnaCap enables swift changes to be incorporated, by leveraging data and analytics to unlock growth through innovative operating strategies.  In addition, AnaCap consistently delivers geographic, product and service expansion through carefully targeted and calibrated add-on acquisitions.

Since 2005, AnaCap’s Private Equity strategy has attracted more than €2.7bn of capital whilst also raising more than €950m of co-invest capital. We target buyout and growth investments in mid-market European Financial, Technology and related Business Services sector companies and always aim to offer co-investment opportunities to our investor base where possible.

Key Facts
€2.7bn
Capital Raised
24
Primary Investments
50
Bolt-Ons
12
Core European Jurisdictions

AnaCap partners with founders and entrepreneurial management teams to build and develop highly successful dynamic, data-driven growth businesses

We deploy a proven operational engagement model to support and help digital innovators who can deliver rapid growth and sustained profitability. AnaCap is always seeking to build on our track record as partners to founders, management buy-out teams and management buy-in teams. Digitalisation and automation are central to both our strategy, and our track record of harnessing tech-enabled solutions to optimise and differentiate, which has subsequently enabled us to consistently create highly valuable assets.

Our Investments
Case Study
Ellisphere, Data & Analytics, France

Established in 2006, Ellisphere is French business operating as a leading provider of corporate data analytics, compliance and risk management solutions, collecting and processing data to provide high quality information and scoring tools to support the business decision-making processes of its clients.

Following AnaCap’s investment in 2017, Ellisphere focused on the digitisation of its processes, with the successful implementation of Darwin, a new technological platform based on artificial intelligence and machine learning delivering powerful data mining and enrichment capabilities. Ellisphere also expanded its core offering to include a market-leading compliance proposition, which grew 300% during AnaCap’s investment. Overall, Ellisphere demonstrated strong embedded earnings with 96% renewal rates, driven by high customer loyalty.

The investment was successfully realised in 2019 when the company was acquired by a consortium formed by Andera Partners, Tikehau Capital and Bpifrance, generating a 2.6x return on invested capital and a 51% IRR.

Case Study
Simply Business, Insurance Broker, UK

Established in 2005, Simply Business was among the earliest online brokers in the commercial insurance industry. Prior to AnaCap’s investment in 2013, growth had stalled as the under-invested legacy technology platform was inefficient and limited the rate of new product development.

With AnaCap’s support, a new technology platform was launched incorporating a new predictive model of customer buying behaviours, and Simply Business became the first commercial insurance broker in the UK to deploy real-time pricing. Data collection processes were also reengineered, and the actionable information collected resulted in a 50% improvement in sales conversion and 37% improvement in renewal rates.

Overall, the investment in growth delivered a 75% increase in revenue over the 3-year hold period and, coupled with numerous measures to optimise the cost base, EBITDA grew by 7x over the same period with margins improving by over 3x.

The investment was successfully realised in 2016 when the company was acquired by Aquiline Capital Partners, generating a 4.2x return on invested capital and a 51% IRR.

Case Study
heidelpay Group, Payments Technology, Germany

Established in 2004, heidelpay is a fast-growing fintech in the European payments market providing in-store, online, and mobile payment acceptance solutions across a wide range of payment methods. Following AnaCap’s investment in 2017, the company accelerated its organic growth and inorganic grow plans, embarking on an extensive buy and build program, increasing market share, geographic footprint and adding further to its leading range of technological payment solutions.

With AnaCap’s support, heidelpay transformed from a key player in a fast-growing market, with a strong technology platform, into a fast-growing, omni-channel disruptor in the DACH e-commerce sector and rapidly investing to stay at the forefront of technological innovation.

During AnaCap’s ownership heidelpay increased revenue and EBITDA by more than 7x, processing in excess of €7bn of digital payments per annum for over 30,000 merchants. Representing a 5x increase in the number of payment transactions processed since acquisition to over 100,000,000 a year.

heidelpay was sold to KKR in 2020.