Silver Lake's Cegid buys VC-backed Talentsoft

Talentsoft shareholders include Francisco Partners, BPI France, Goldman Sachs, Highland Capital Partners Europe, Seventure and TempoCap.

The company's co-founders – Jean-Stéphane Arcis, Joel Bentolila and Alexandre Pachulski – along with the rest of the management team and Talentsoft's 600 employees, will join Cegid in the coming weeks.

With this add-on, Cegid plans to broaden its current software offering and strengthen its market position in the payroll and human resources management segment. The company also intends to further expand in Europe, particularly through Talentsoft's solid position in the Nordic region.

Following the merger, the combined group is expected to exceed revenues of €600m.

Silver Lake and AltaOne Capital took Cegid private in 2016, in a deal valuing the company at around €580m. 

Cegid provides enterprise management software and cloud services to around 135,000 clients. It generates annual revenues of approximately €500m.

Previous funding
Talentsoft's first institutional backer was French VC Seventure, which deployed €1m in early-stage capital in return for a minority stake in June 2008; the firm followed this with a €1.6m injection in October 2009 to accelerate the company's expansion on the commercial side.

In January 2011, amid reports from Talentsoft that it had tripled in size between 2009 and 2010, a further €3m was injected by Seventure alongside new backer Alto Invest.

A fourth round took place in March 2012, when BPI France became a minority shareholder via a €1m investment.

Subsequently, Highland Europe led a €15m round for the business with participation from BPI France in September 2013.

Goldman Sachs entered the capital structure in 2015 investing €25m in the business in exchange for a minority stake.

More recently, US-based Francisco Partners led a $50m funding round for Talentsoft in January 2019. Existing investors BPI France and Goldman Sachs also committed to the financing.

Company
Founded in 2007 and headquartered in Paris, Talentsoft develops cloud-native human capital management (HCM) software.

Its platform provides HR capabilities to improve the employee experience while adjusting to cultural, linguistic and regulatory requirements of HR management across Europe.

Employing 600 staff across 15 offices, the company serves 2,200 clients in 130 countries.

The business is targeting an EBITDA margin of 10% from revenues of €100m in 2021, according to French press reports.

People
Silver Lake – Christian Lucas (co-head of EMEA).
Goldman Sachs – Alexandre Flavier (executive director).
BPI France – Nicolas Dufourcq (executive director).
Cegid – Pascal Houillon (CEO).
Talentsoft – Jean-Stephane Arcis (CEO); Joel Bentolila (chief technology officer); Alexandre Pachulski (product director).

Advisers
Company – Arma Partners (corporate finance).

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