
Wellington in triple-deal close
Wellington Partners speaks to unquote” about wrapping up three new funding rounds in Netherlands-based Distimo, Switzerland-based Dacuda and Austria-based Opvizor.
The latest investments come from the firm's Wellington V Digital Fund, which launched last year and focuses on seed and early-stage investments in digital media and software across Europe. The fund has made eight investments in total, including the latest three.
Initially a DACH-focused firm, Wellington split its operations in 2004 to focus separately on life sciences, which remain predominantly DACH-focused, and technology on a pan-European basis. Its tech arm is now based largely in London, with team members on the ground in key cities across Europe such as Berlin and Stockholm.
Wellington's investment strategy is centred around expanding companies into the US. The firm aims to be the first institutional investor in a company and will generally invest up to series-A, with the goal of its portfolio companies raising their series-B rounds from US investors.
The firm's seed investment in Distimo is believed to sit around the $1m mark. Wellington was introduced to the company through partner Bart Markus's ties to the Twente University of Technology in the Netherlands, where the company's four founders also all attended.
Wellington took part in Dacuda's series-A financing round. The company usually invests between $2-5m in series-A. Dacuda board member Hans-Peter Metzler also is chairman of another of Wellington's portfolio companies and introduced the venture capital firm to the software company.
Opvizor received funding from Wellington, which was a co-investor alongside business angels after tracking the company for several years. The series-A investment is understood to be in the region of $1-2m.
Companies
Founded in 2009, Distimo is headquartered in Utrecht with US offices in San Francisco and New York, as well as additional offices located in London, Seoul and Tokyo. The company, which employs 53 staff, is the developer of an app analytics platform that allows app developers to track daily performance. Distimo claims to command a 40% share of the global app analytics market, with more than 300,000 app developers using its service.
Zurich-headquartered Dacuda also has operations in South Korea. With Wellington's backing, the company is looking to move its commercial side to the US. The company is developing its product portfolio into consumer-centric applications, integrating its existing "scanning mouse" technology into mobile apps, including panoramic and ultra-high resolution photo capabilities. The company was founded in 2008 as a spinout from ETH Zurich.
Opvizor provides a software-as-a-service for data processing. Originally founded in Vienna in 2008, the company is in the process of moving its headquarters to Houston, Texas. Its software manages virtual IT infrastructures by monitoring and predicting system errors. According to Opvizor, more than 50% of production environments are virtualised.
People
Bart Markus and Eric Archambeau are partners at Wellington. Vincent Hoogsteder is the CEO of Distimo, Peter Weigard is the CEO of Dacuda and Dennis Zimmer is the CEO of Opvizor.
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