Inveready sells Lucierna to VC-backed SmartBear
Spanish investor Inveready has divested enterprise application company Lucierna in a sale to SmartBear, a software company backed by US venture capital firm Insight Venture Partners.
Caixa Capital Risc has also sold its 5% stake in the firm, alongside Inveready's 40% stake. The founding family previously held the remaining share capital.
The acquisition expands SmartBear's range of product solutions for web and mobile monitoring.
The exit is the third completed by Inveready this year following the sale of PasswordBank and Indisys. The VC launched its second tech fund in October this year.
Previous funding
Inveready and Caixa Capital Risc backed the company in 2011 with a €1.5m capital injection, according to unquote" data. Lucierna approached the investors, which committed capital from the Inveready Seed Capital, Inveready First Capital I and Caixa Capital Micro vehicles. Inveready invested €400,000, while Caixa contributed €500,000.
The founders reinvested to retain a majority stake, while public organisations Enisa and CDTI provided the remaining funding.
It is understood follow-on funding was committed by Inveready at a later date.
Company
Barcelona-based Lucierna was founded in May 2009 and provides application performance management solutions across the lifecycle for Java, .NET, and PhP applications. Its Torch solution detects bottlenecks, crashes, critical exceptions and performance degradation of production applications.
The company is active in Spain, the UK, Germany and Italy. Clients include Toyota, Telecom Italia, Banque Internationale Luxembourg and Vodafone.
The company's operational headquarters will remain in Spain post-acquisition. The product development team will be integrated into the SmartBear structure.
People
Ignacio Fonts, CEO of Inveready First Capital I, and Roger Piqué, founding partner of Inveready Seed Capital, led the 2011 investment for Inveready and joined the company's board. Manuel Barallat represented Caixa Capital Risc. Manuel López, Alejandro González, Abraham Nevado and Juan Mahíllo are the founders of Lucierna.
Advisers
Vendors – Across Legal (Legal).
More on Southern Europe
Change of mind: Sponsors take to de-listing their own assets
EQT and Cinven seen as bellweather for funds to reassess options for listed assets trading underwater
EU FSR could impact PE fundraising with potential rise in ‘clean funds’
FSR could lead GPs to create funds without foreign LPs; red tape around sovereign wealth funds likely
Letter from the editor: Unquote is moving to Mergermarket
Unquote Editor Harriet Matthews outlines Unquote.com's upcoming move to the Mergermarket platform and the new capabilities and intelligence that this brings to Unquote readers
GP Profile: Apheon builds on family roots, mulls exits and reinvestment opportunities
Belgian GP, formerly known as Ergon, to continue to target family- and entrepreneur-owned European businesses
Latest News
Stonehage Fleming raises USD 130m for largest fund to date, eyes 2024 programme
Multi-family office has seen strong appetite, with investor base growing since 2016 to more than 90 family offices, Meiping Yap told Unquote
Permira to take Ergomed private for GBP 703m
Sponsor deploys Permira VIII to ride new wave of take-privates; Blackstone commits GBP 200m in financing for UK-based CRO
Partners Group to release IMs for Civica sale in mid-September
Sponsor acquired the public software group in July 2017 via the same-year vintage Partners Group Global Value 2017
Change of mind: Sponsors take to de-listing their own assets
EQT and Cinven seen as bellweather for funds to reassess options for listed assets trading underwater