With two new investments in France, Fortino Capital strengthens its position as a Northwest European investor in B2B SaaS companies.

Antwerp, 10 March 2022 - Fortino Capital's story is now also catching on in France. Just like in the Benelux and Northern Europe, the company invests in early-stage B2B SaaS companies with its venture capital fund. The recent investment in Flowlity is an example of this. In turn, the private equity fund provides growth capital to more mature software companies. With the recently announced investment in Bonitasoft, Fortino Capital has landed its first private equity deal in France.

Fortino's strengths for French companies

For French scale-ups that are often strongly focused on their own market, Fortino Capital brings an international mindset and expertise. This allows the company to fully deploy the strengths it has developed in its own backyard, on a market that is culturally close to the Benelux.

The expertise in scaling up companies is an added value with which Fortino has been contributing to some spectacular growth stories in the Benelux, including Efficy, Odin and also Sigma Conso. As a result of expertise in HR, sales, general management and product development, Fortino provides resources for the founders and guides them through the growth process. The founder is central and chooses what the company needs.

Fortino Capital's impressive network is an additional asset for French companies. The Benelux is an important market for them. The personal introductions to potential clients in the large network of Fortino are invaluable.

Exceptional growth potential in France and Germany

Fortino has a considerable growth potential outside the Benelux. Germany and France are the largest and second largest economies in Europe, respectively. B2B SaaS companies are also in that order of magnitude, including undiscovered gems with the potential to grow out of their own home markets.

Each year, both France and Germany offer ten times more investment opportunities than Belgium. In our country, there are about forty potential venture capital (VC) opportunities per year within our scope. The Dutch market has about five times the volume of Belgium.

A significant part of the second VC fund of 105 million euros is therefore invested in French companies.

VC to Paris, PE to Grenoble and Lyon

For the VC team, the focus is on Paris, complemented by Lille and Lyon, where the team collaborates with other funds. Private Equity mainly targets technologically strong regions such as Grenoble and Lyon. These regions are home to growing, mature companies and scale-ups that recruit their talents from technical universities and colleges (close to high-tech centres such as CERN and close to many top French companies).

The investment in Bonitasoft that Fortino is announcing today is just the beginning. For the future, Fortino's PE team plans more investments in B2B SaaS companies, based on the second PE fund that is currently being put together.

Duco Sickinghe, co-founder and Managing Partner of Fortino Capital: “An increased presence in France is a logical step in Fortino Capital's own growth story, as a Northwest European investor in B2B SaaS companies. We are excited about the quality and healthy ambitions of the French companies that we can add to our portfolio. Together we will write a spectacular growth story. In this way we will put ourselves more in the picture of entrepreneurs, their shareholders and advisors when raising capital or transferring businesses.”

Two future-oriented investments

The brand new investments in Bonitasoft and Flowlity are references in progress. They are in excellent position to play a meaningful role in the current wave of digitalisation in many companies.

Arnaud De Vos, Investment Director Private Equity of Fortino: “Bonitasoft is a nice, profitable growth company. With an open source technology in the field of business process management, they enable their customers to digitise their business models, processes and applications in a simple, comprehensive and flexible way. This is a huge and dynamic market. In many companies, Covid has painfully exposed the need for digitalisation, thus accelerating the process. After several years of investing in a new Cloud-first platform (launched in 2021), we think the time is right to press the accelerator pedal and generate growth.”

Filip Van Innis, Investment Director Venture Capital of Fortino: “Flowlity develops a platform that digitises supply chain management in a way that allows clients to maintain lower stocks with a minimal risk of stockouts. Their goal is to improve the cooperation between all parties in the supply chain. One of their customers is the French company Cajoo, which delivers all kinds of household products to your home in Paris in just 15 minutes. In the longer term, the scale-up aspires to become the leader in its segment.”

Read the full press release about Flowlity here and about Bonitasoft here.

About Fortino Capital

Fortino Capital Partners is a European investment company with a focus on high-growth B2B software solutions. With offices in Belgium and the Netherlands, Fortino backs exceptional and ambitious entrepreneurs in North-Western Europe. Next to Venture Capital, Fortino also invests in more established software companies (Growth Capital). Fortino's Venture Capital portfolio includes, amongst others, Zaion (FR), Timeseer.ai (BE), Salonkee (LUX), SimplyDelivery (DE), iObeya (FR), D2X (NL), Peers (DE), Reveall (NL), Merkely (NO).