Qatari funds find way into tech ventures too
SWISS IT FIRM NEXTHINK BENEFITS FROM MANNAI CORP IN ITS LATEST FUNDING ROUND
Qatari funds are not just being deployed to pick up a Harrods or develop the Shard high-rise … they could even be extended to European tech firms on the cusp of going bigger.
The Mannai Corp. recently placed some of its considerable financial resources into Nexthink, a Swiss firm IT firm which specialises in end-user analytics. The latter secured $14.5 million (Dh53.26 million) in a Series D round of funding — led by Auriga Partners — with participation from a new investor, the entrepreneur Gilles Queru, and existing investors VI Partners and Mannai Corporation. (Mannai Corp, incidentally, owns the UAE based jewellery chain Damas, which it bought in early 2014.)
It was in 2008 that Nexthink set up a presence in the region and went on to build a roster of clients for its services. “Our general manager in the region, Yassine Zaied, had established a great business relationship with Mannai Corporation as one of our first partners in the Middle East,” said Pedro Bados, CEO and Co-founder of Nexthink. “With Mannai, we signed the first important customer successes and references.
“When a new round of funding came up, we presented the opportunity to Mannai and the fit was natural. The round of funding was in 2012 for $5.5 million, which was then used to expand our global presence.”
Launch capital
The company was launched with a capital of 7.6 million Swiss francs (Dh29.39 million).
To date, it has managed to pull in $28 million by way of venture capital from investors in Qatar, Switzerland and France. “If new rounds of investment will take place in the future, our shareholders will decide the most appropriate capital for the company’s development,” said Bados. “This includes increasing their equity stake, as in any other capital increase.”
The funds generated just now would go towards “expansion in existing and new territories and future product developments in the cloud and mobility space”.
“Nexthink is developing strategic partnerships with service providers to enforce and differentiate their service offerings and enable them to deliver the benefits of employee IT Analytics to enterprises in various ways,” the CEO said.
Clients in the region include Saudi Electricity Company, the Abu Dhabi Department of Finance and GASCO. “Nexthink is growing fast in Saudi Arabia and our collaboration with major government entities has become a key driver for us,” Bados said.
“We are heavily investing in the Middle East to build a team that will deliver outstanding solutions to our strategic partners and customers. We are already seeing growth year-on-year.”
Currently, Europe represents 65 per cent of the business and 30 per cent generated from the Middle East. The rest is from the US, a market that it went into a year ago. It has around 100 customers in the Middle East after adding more than 20 new ones last year.
“In 2015, we plan to grow another 45 per cent in the GCC, hiring resources and recruiting partners to better assist our growing customer base,” Bados said. “We are strengthening our operations in Saudi Arabia and the UAE and expanding into new countries including India, Egypt and Kuwait.”