Acrolinx, a provider of AI software for enterprise content creation, has announced a majority acquisition and equity growth funding by GENUI in a transaction with a volume of approximately USD60 million.
Bernd-Michael Rumpf, former CEO of SAP SI will invest alongside GENUI and Acrolinx management is expanding its shareholding in the company as part of the transaction. The investment will help accelerate Acrolinx’s continued global expansion and market leadership. Drake Star Partners acted as exclusive financial advisor to Acrolinx on this transaction.
“Content matters now more than ever. To reach, engage, and retain customers, you need a lot of high-quality content. While many companies have solved the problem of content distribution, scaling the creation of great content remains a huge challenge. We have shown how Artificial Intelligence is a great way to solve that problem,” says Andrew Bredenkamp, Founder and CEO of Acrolinx.
“We are confident that the experience and networks of GENUI and Bernd-Michael Rumpf will bring enormous value for Acrolinx. Together with GENUI, a strong partner with a long-term focus, we will be able to further scale our go-to-market strategies, broaden and accelerate product development, and execute on our vision even more rapidly,” adds Ulrich Callmeier, COO & CTO of Acrolinx.
Acrolinx is the only AI software platform that uses a unique linguistic engine to “read” content and provide immediate guidance and powerful analytics to make it more effective. The company’s technology is transforming how over 300 of the world’s biggest brands create high-performing content on-brand, on-target and at scale. The Acrolinx AI engine integrates with all major content tools, giving content contributors real-time advice on everything from brand, tone, clarity, compliance and consistency as they create content.
“Acrolinx delivers a unique and compelling value proposition for its customers – a proprietary AI-powered linguistics engine technology to help companies align, enhance, and enrich their marketing and product content. We are committed to jointly accelerate growth with new and existing customers and further sharpen the various use cases along the customer journey”, said Bernd-Michael Rumpf.
“The Acrolinx offering is unique, easy to implement and has a clear ROI for its customers,” says Patrick Gehlen, Partner at GENUI. In our discussions with customers they confirmed the strong value add through cost savings in the content creation process, faster time to market as well as increasing revenues through more effective content. This has enabled Acrolinx to capture an impressive global customer base with 70 per cent-plus revenues abroad with largely blue chip customers like Google, SAP, IBM, Amazon, Volvo, Siemens, Facebook and Nestle. GENUI is excited to support the company to further expand its global leadership position.”
With GENUI as a partner with a long-term view providing capital and expertise, Acrolinx will benefit from a stable shareholder structure, enabling management to pursue its strategy, focused on sustainable growth.
Bernd-Michael Rumpf, Patrick Gehlen and Max Odefey of GENUI will join as members of the company’s board of directors.
”Acrolinx is one of the most promising AI-based enterprise software players in Europe serving a highly dynamic global market fuelled by unprecedented investments in content”, said Ralf Philipp Hofmann, Managing Partner and Member of the Global Executive Committee at Drake Star Partners. ”It was very exciting for us to support the Acrolinx global leadership team in achieving their goals to move to the next level of the company’s expansion.”
“With a great understanding of the enterprise software market and an enormous global reach and network, Drake Star Partners was the perfect partner for us to find a new, strong shareholder supporting our global expansion strategy as part of a highly competitive, global process”, said Ulrich Callmeier.
