€1.5bn of acquisitions in European software market • The Register

European mid-market ERP specialist Forterro was bought by Partners Group this morning for €1bn and Germany’s Software AG has acquired data integration platform vendor StreamSets for €524m.

Partners Group invests in private equity, infrastructure, and real estate organisations. In buying Forterro from Battery Ventures, it is underscoring the software firm’s prospects for growth, said Bilge Ogut, head of private equity technology at Partners Group.

Forterro was founded 10 years ago with the acquisition of Sweden’s Jeeves Information Systems AB and has since acquired software brands Garp, Proconcept, Sylob and Clipper. It employs more than 1,200 people in 40 offices.

Dean Forbes, CEO of Forterro, said in a statement: “Over the past year, we have spent a great deal of time developing strategies for growth and investing in the people and infrastructure we need to achieve a brand new vision. The final piece of the puzzle was partnering with an investor that would share this vision with us.”

“Forterro has been on an incredible journey, evolving from a Nordics-based on-premise manufacturing ERP vendor to an extremely well-run, pan-European group of specialised ERP businesses,” said Ogut.

Meanwhile, software integration vendor Software AG has bought StreamSets, which claims to help with “data integration for the modern data stack.”

Germany’s second-largest software company plans to adds StreamSets’ SaaS and subscription business to its mix of on-prem and cloud revenues.

StreamSets claims to work across on-premises applications, data streams, SaaS applications, legacy data stores, and cloud data platforms like Amazon RedShift, Databricks, and Snowflake.

In a statement, Software AG CEO Sanjay Brahmawar said: “We’re acquiring a fast-growing business in a cloud market growing 26 per cent. Its technology and team will further differentiate our hybrid integration offering for customers and fully complement our strategy to deliver sustainable profitable growth.”

The €524m buyout is set to be funded by cash and Software AG’s existing credit facilities, the company said.

Software AG has recently been branching out from its integration and data management strongholds. In October 2021, it launched new functions in its ARIS product designed to give customers a more in-depth understanding of how processes are working and what causes them to slow down, principally through IoT data.®