Corten buys Emeram's Matrix42

The company said in a statement that Al Monserrat is expected to join Matrix42 as supervisory board chairman. Monserrat has prior experience in executive roles at several IT businesses, including as senior vice-president of worldwide sales and services at Citrix.

The deal is the first from Corten's debut fund, which held a final close in June 2020 on €392m, surpassing its €300m target. The fund generally writes equity cheques of €50-150m, but can invest up to €250m per portfolio company to support future growth. Corten invests in B2B services, and information and software companies, targeting both the US and Europe.

As reported by Unquote sister publication Mergermarket, Emeram initially launched a sale process for Matrix42 in 2018, before halting the process in 2019. Emeram had hoped to see a valuation of €150-200m and had marketed Matrix42 based on adjusted EBITDA of €20m, Mergermarket reported at the time.

Emeram co-founder Christian Näther told Unquote in July 2020 that the GP was supporting the business with its transformation from a licensing model for its software to a subscription model, which was likely to be completed by mid-2021.

Following the first sale process, Matrix42 made two bolt-ons, acquiring US-based Firescope in July 2020 and Germany-based FastViewer in January 2021. Following the Firescope acquisition, the company was expected to report 2020 revenues of €50m and to have 400 staff.

Emeram acquired Matrix42 in November 2015 from listed Poland-based software company Asseco. The deal valued Matrix42 at €46.3m. The GP deployed equity via Emeram Fund I, which held a final close in January 2015 on €400m.

Company
Founded in 1992 and headquartered in Frankfurt am Main, Matrix42 provides digital workspace management software for enterprise customers. The platform allows IT teams to manage endpoints, applications and services for system users. Its client base of around 5,000 institutions includes BMW, Daimler, Deutsche Telekom, Puma and Zalando, according to its website.

People
Corten Capital – Joseph Schull (managing partner).
Emeram Capital Partners – Kai Köppen (senior partner).
Matrix42 – Oliver Bendig (CEO).

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