Eurazeo's Smile acquires digital agency Adyax

Listed PE firm Eurazeo, via its PME mid-cap arm, acquired a majority stake in French open-source IT business Smile in 2017 from Keensight Capital, backed with a unitranche debt facility amounting to approximately €50m from Idinvest. Capzanine also provided a debt package to support the transaction.

The acquisition of Adyax is the second significant bolt-on since Eurazeo came on board, after the business acquired the Swiss digital strategy consultant Virtua in January.

With offices in seven countries, Smile is an open source digital services specialist. Its services range from consulting to design and execution. The business employs 1,300 people and generated €84m revenues in 2017.

Smile aims at a 20% organic growth in 2018. The company believes this organic growth combined with the Adyax acquisition should help the group revenues (proforma) exceed €115m in 2018, compared to €84m in 2017.

Company
Founded in 2008 and based in Paris, digital agency Adyax supports large European businesses in their strategy, design and development of digital projects, specialising in the open source Drupal framework. It has a specific expertise in retail, luxury products, hotels and industry.

Some of its clients include LVMH, Disney, Ipsos, Saint-Gobain, Le Monde, Carrefour and Valeo.

Operating 10 offices and employing 350 people, the business generated revenue of €13m in 2017.

People
Smile – Marc Palazon (CEO).
Adyax – Yann Perron, Maxime Topolov (co-founders).

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