Apax Partners acquires Solita from Vaaka Partners

Solita's management team will acquire a minority stake in the business alongside the 2017-vintage Apax Digital Fund.

The deal ends a five-year holding period for Vaaka, which acquired the business in 2013. Under its ownership, the company tripled both its headcount and revenues.

With the fresh capital, Solita intends to boost growth in its native Finland and accelerate its international expansion, both organically and through potential acquisitions. 

Solita bought Finnish service design business Palmu in March 2017, forming a business services company with more than 600 employees.

The investment in Solita is the 10th IT services investment completed by Apax. Previous deals in the sector include Wizeline – also acquired via the Apax Digital Fund – GlobalLogic, ThoughtWorks, Evry, Engineering and Zensar.

The Apax Digital Fund was announced in January 2017 with a target of $800m and held a final close in December 2017 on its hard-cap of $1bn. The fund makes minority and buyout investments between $30-150m in high-growth, mid-market technology companies in Europe and the US.

Previous funding
Vaaka, via its fund Vaaka Partners Buyout Fund II and alongside management, acquired a majority stake in Solita in March 2013. Following the transaction, Vakka held 75% of the company's shares and the remaining 25% was held by management.

Company
Established in 1996 and headquartered in Helsinki, Solita provides a range of services to businesses, including strategic consulting, service design, artificial intelligence, analytics and managed cloud services. It employs around 650 people across Finland, Sweden, Singapore and Estonia.

People
Apax Digital – Marcelo Gigliani (managing partner); Mark Beith (managing director).
Solita – Jari Niska (CEO).

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• Topics
• Buyouts
• Exits
• Nordics
• Support services
• Finland
• Vaaka Partners Ltd (Formerly Pohjola)
• Apax Partners
• Secondary buyout