Warburg Pincus, a global private equity firm focused on growth investing, has sold ipan Group, a providers of IP management services and software, to Castik Capital.
Since its acquisition by Warburg Pincus in 2014, ipan has added over 100 new customers and more than tripled its revenues. This strong growth has been driven by ipan’s expansion into new locations in the US, UK, France, the Nordics and Benelux. With the support of Warburg Pincus, ipan has been been actively growing its services offering via the acquisitions of software providers Unycom and IPSS as well as the acquisition of a minority stake in IPfolio. Earlier this year, ipan further expanded its product portfolio by launching ip-x-change, a new open platform for IP related software and services.
In February 2018, ipan appointed Dr Jens Lütcke as CEO succeeding the founder of ipan, Anton Bory, who continues to be closely involved with the business as an Advisory Board member.
Max Fowinkel, Managing Director at Warburg Pincus International LLC, says: “We are proud of the transformative investments and significant growth that ipan has achieved during our ownership. As growth investors, we feel privileged to have supported ipan in building a leading provider of IP management services and software and we wish the entire ipan team continued success.”
Bory says: “Warburg Pincus has been a great partner and has provided us with tremendous support on our growth initiatives such as our strong internationalisation, the three acquisitions completed together and, most recently, the launch of ip-x-change.”
Dr Jens Lütcke, CEO of ipan, says: “Based on the investments made and the strategic decisions taken together with Warburg Pincus, ipan is strongly positioned to continue its accelerated growth in the IP sector.”