Waterland backs Intelligent Group

The round, which is the first institutional round for the business since its inception in 1999, comes after the company was approached by Waterland alongside several other potential investors.

Intelligent Group will use the capital to pursue a buy-and-build strategy. Having carried out two acquisitions since January, the hosting service is considering additional bolt-ons within the shared and management hosting sectors in the next few months.

The company, which is headquartered in Belgium and has a presence in the Netherlands, aims to expand into additional countries outside the Benelux region in the long term.

Waterland's investment is the second announced by the GP in close succession, following the acquisition of British incinerator bottom ash recycling company Ballast Phoenix from H2 Equity Partners, which had bought the company one year earlier for €38m.

Company
Founded in 1999 by Jonas Dhaenens, Intelligent Group is an internet hosting service. It currently operates under the Combell, which offers shared hosting solutions to 50,000 customers; Unitt, which targets the e-commerce and high-traffic website sectors; Easyhost; and Register brands.

Headquartered in Ghent, the business employs 150 people and posted €20.5m in turnover in 2014.

People
Partner Cédric Van Cauwenberghe worked on the deal on behalf of Waterland Private Equity Investments. Jonas Dhaenens is founder and CEO of Intelligent Group.

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• Topics
• Benelux
• Expansion
• Technology
• Belgium
• Waterland Private Equity
• H2 Equity Partners
• Unq2015July