Viking Venture et. al reap 12x in GasSecure exit

In addition to Viking, investors in GasSecure include Investinor, ProVenture Seed and Sintef Venture. The investor group is understood to be splitting NOK 400m of the NOK 500m sale price – more than 12 times the initial NOK 33m investment.

Prior to the sale, Viking Venture and Investinor had been the largest shareholders with a 23% stake. ProVenture held 20%, Sintef 14%, and founder Knut Sandven retained 10% of the company. The balance was held by management and employees.

GasSecure will continue as a separate entity under Dräger after the acquisition, and will complement the acquirer's portfolio of gas detection products.

Previous funding
Investinor, Viking Venture, ProVenture and Sintef jointly backed GasSecure in March 2010, investing NOK 33m.

Investinor committed NOK 10m of the round, contingent on certain milestones.

Company
Founded by Knut Sandven and Sintef in 2008 based on technology from Sintef, GasSecure has developed a wireless gas detector for the oil & gas industry.

Before GasSecure's product came to market, gas detectors in the sector were all hard-wired, which resulted in steep installation costs.

Based in Oslo, the company has grown from a staff of two to 11, with revenues of NOK 11m last year.

People
Knut Sandven is the founder and CEO of GasSecure. Investinor investment director Helle Moen worked on the original investment, together with Viking Venture partner Harald Jeremiassen, who is a GasSecure board member.

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