HgCapital offloads investment in Foundry to Roper Technologies
HgCapital Trust announced the sale of high‑end visual effects and 3D design software developer Foundry to diversified technology company Roper Technologies on Tuesday, for £410m in cash.
Equity Investment Instruments
11,613.36
17:09 25/04/24
FTSE 250
19,601.98
17:09 25/04/24
FTSE 350
4,434.34
17:09 25/04/24
FTSE All-Share
4,387.94
16:49 25/04/24
HGCapital Trust
470.00p
16:35 25/04/24
The FTSE 250 firm said Foundry provided “award-winning creative software” for film post‑production visual effects with its Nuke product range, and a series of complementary products.
Its digital design products offered advanced 3D modelling, visualisation and design variation capabilities to designers and artists across a broad range of industry verticals including footwear and apparel.
With Athera, it said Foundry was the first company to offer a fully cloud-based solution for the visual effects industry with software, compute, storage and rendering capabilities.
Foundry enabled clients including Pixar, ILM, MPC, Walt Disney Animation and Weta Digital as well as automotive, footwear, apparel and technology companies such as Mercedes, New Balance, Adidas and Google to solve “complex creative challenges”, the board explained.
Foundry was founded in 1996, and is headquartered in London, with offices in Manchester and Austin.
It had more than 6,000 customers in over 100 countries and employed around 300 people.
Hg invested in Foundry from the Hg7 fund in 2015, saying it recognised the company as a leading global provider of vertical market application software, with rich intellectual property, strong positioning within its business segments and the potential to enter new market segments.
It had worked with the company's management team to broaden Foundry's go-to-market strategy, invest in its cutting-edge product offering across the media and entertainment sectors, and accelerate the growth of the company's digital design division.
“Foundry is a business with a 20-year history of growth and innovation,” said HgCapital senior partner Nic Humphries.
“Hg has built on the company's strong development capabilities to drive enterprise adoption of the digital design offering and pioneer revolutionary new products such as Athera.
“We've enjoyed working with the team over the last four years and wish the team well as they continue their growth journey as part of Roper Technologies.”
Craig Rodgerson, chief executive officer of Foundry, added that HgCapital had been a “great partner” to Foundry over the last few years, helping the firm to evolve from a number of category-leading products into a cloud-enabled platform positioned for growth across industry segments and geographies.
“We look forward to partnering with Roper Technologies to continue our ambition to be the leading provider of software to professional users in creative industries.”