Snow Software and Vitruvian Partners Announce $120 Million Strategic Investment from Sumeru Equity Partners and Ontario Pension Board

Snow Software (“Snow”), the global leader in Software Asset Management (“SAM”) and Cloud Spend Management solutions, today announced a $120 million strategic investment from Sumeru Equity Partners (“SEP”) and Ontario Pension Board (“OPB”). The investment will accelerate global expansion plans, enhance Snow’s offering across mobile and cloud platforms and drive new product innovation. Existing shareholders, including CEO and co-founder Axel Kling, Snow employees and Vitruvian Partners (“Vitruvian”), will continue to hold a majority shareholding in the business and remain fully committed to Snow’s evolution. SEP Managing Directors, Jason Babcoke and George Kadifa, will join Snow’s board of directors.

Chief Executive Officer and co-founder of Snow, Axel Kling, commented: “We are grateful not only to have been part of making Software Asset Management one of the fastest-growing software verticals in the world, but also to get the opportunity to redefine the customers’ expectations of SAM solutions through coverage of new platforms, licensing types and advanced automation capabilities.

“We have come a long way but we are still only scratching the surface on the enormous potential in supporting customers to ensure that the $394.8 billion¹ spent every year on enterprise software is invested efficiently. With Vitruvian and SEP, we are thrilled to have the backing of two world-class investors as Snow enters the next stage of its development on our continued quest for brilliance.”

Founded in 2004, Snow is the established global market leader in SAM, helping over 6,000 organizations across more than 50 countries contain and optimize software spend and achieve compliance with complex software licensing terms across mobile, desktop, data center and cloud solutions. Snow’s solutions provide highly automated reconciliation of license entitlements to actual software usage, installations/ removals and license upgrades as well as advanced analytics which help customers save up to 30% of their annual software expenditure.

Customers further use Snow’s solution as a decision-making analytics tool to direct investment in new software and maximizing ROI. Snow’s cloud-based and on-premise platforms have been recognized and rewarded by among others Forrester, Gartner and ITAM Review. Snow has grown its revenues by more than 50% annually since 2012 and today has over 700 employees in 21 countries. Recent notable client wins include Canon, Sky, Lockheed Martin, IKEA, Volkswagen, Tesco and Rio Tinto.

Managing Partner at SEP, Kyle Ryland, commented: “We identified Snow several years ago as a leader in managing the complexity and cost of software and cloud services, a growing challenge for enterprises. Under the leadership of Axel, Snow has demonstrated strong growth and product innovation and we are excited to partner with the company and Vitruvian to build upon that success.”

Mike Risman, Chairman of Snow Software added: “Vitruvian is delighted to continue supporting Axel and the Snow team in their drive to global leadership in this exciting market. We welcome SEP and OPB as key partners to help achieve success. Snow’s relentless focus on product excellence has delivered tremendous growth since inception, and it has been a privilege for us to work on a number of strategic initiatives with the business over the past years. The addressable market for software governance and cloud control solutions is massive. We congratulate Axel and his team on the scope of their founding vision and achieving this additional milestone on their impressive journey to global implementation.”

ENDS

About Snow Software

Snow provides Software Asset Management (SAM) solutions that prevent any of the $394.8 billion spent every year on enterprise software being a wasted investment – ensuring organizations have appropriate licensing for the software they use.

More than 6,000 organizations worldwide rely on Snow to optimize licensing across mobile, desktop, data center and cloud platforms.

For more information, please visit www.snowsoftware.com

About Sumeru Equity Partners

Sumeru Equity Partners is a technology-focused private equity firm that invests in market leaders across software, technology-enabled services and hardware. The firm was founded in Silicon Valley by an experienced team from Silver Lake. Sumeru Equity Partners utilizes extensive operating and investment experience in partnership with founders and management teams to drive growth and build strategic value. We believe long-term value is created through better strategy, operations and business models, not financial engineering. Our portfolio includes industry leaders such as Blackline Systems, Buildium, Cybera, Foreflight and Talend, among others. For more information, please visit www.sumeruequity.com

About Ontario Pension Board (OPB)

Ontario Pension Board administers Ontario's Public Service Pension Plan, a defined benefit pension plan serving over 85,000 active, retired and deferred members and their employers. With more than $24.4 billion in assets, it is one of Canada's largest pension plans. Over the last 20 years, Ontario Pension Board has become one of Canada's leading direct owners of high quality commercial real estate.

About Vitruvian Partners

Vitruvian Partners is a leading pan European private equity investor focusing on high growth, technology-centric “Dynamic Situations”. Vitruvian supports entrepreneurial management teams and founders through a combination of strategic initiatives and operational support. Vitruvian has assets under management of €2.2 billion and offices in London, Stockholm, Munich, San Francisco and Luxembourg. Vitruvian has been particularly active in the technology and internet/cloud services environment with strategic investments that include: Just Eat, Farfetch, Skyscanner, Voxbone, Snapologic, CRF Health, Benify, Callcredit and OAG – as well as its longstanding support of Snow Software.

For further information on Vitruvian please contact: Kay.Larsen@instinctif.com

¹ Gartner. Forecast Alert: IT Spending, Worldwide, 1Q17 Update. Published: 30 March 2017 I

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Contact information

Snow Software
Su Kent
su.kent@snowsoftware.com
+46 70 822 1149