Main Capital, a Dutch private equity investor, took a 55-60 percent stake in social media companies OBI4wan and OBILytics from Zaandam.
According to business newspaper FD 'several millions' were paid for the majority stake.
OBI4wan (the Star Wars reference is strong with this one) was founded 2011 by Alexander de Ruiter and Alex Slatman. The company offers social media monitoring services. Sister company OBILytics was founded in 2015 with data scientist Frank Smit, and offers social media analytics.
International expansion
This investment allows the software companies to expand internationally more and to get a grip on such a fragmented market. The plan is to let this happen by the means of an acquisition. The founders are looking for suitable candidates in The Netherlands and Germany.
Main Capital on the investment
In a release managing partner from Main Capital, Charly Zwemstra, said: "For years the management has been able to combine profits with rapid growth. We’re seeing great opportunities to further expand these profits and international expansion."
Zwemstra had a remarkable quote in the FD as well: "(with this investment) we get in a relatively new, fast growing market." We're not so sure about the 'relatively new' part though…
Image: Panther Media