Press release

Ekimetrics raises EUR 24 million in fresh capital from Tikehau Capital and Bpifrance

  • Ekimetrics, European leader in data science solutions, welcomes two minority shareholders for the first time: Tikehau Capital and Bpifrance
  • A combined total of EUR 24 million in fresh capital will be used to fuel Ekimetrics' international growth, enhance its technological assets, and help to set a new standard for the sector worldwide

Paris, 30 November 2020 - Ekimetrics, European leader in data science solutions, welcomes two minority shareholders: Tikehau Capital -via its growth capital fund, which was recently awarded the "Relance" label- and Bpifrance -via its MidCap fund. The founders of Ekimetrics, who will retain a controlling stake, hope to invest the combined total of EUR 24 million in fuelling the company's international growth, enhancing its technological assets, and setting a new standard for the sector worldwide.

Ekimetrics provides industrialized corporate data science solutions to meet its clients' most pressing business needs. Specifically, it uses data to maximize companies' return on investment on marketing expenses and optimize sales, the customer experience, and the entire operational model.

Ekimetrics targets both larger and intermediate-sized enterprises and major organisations across all industries, seeking to help them build their data capital, and use data science and artificial intelligence (AI) to further their business in a practical, sustainable and ethical way.

Founded in 2006, Ekimetrics has enjoyed strong organic growth since launch of around 30% per year, self-funding projects in over 50 countries. The company has a presence in Paris, London, New York and Hong Kong and now has one of the largest independent teams in Europe, comprising over 240 data scientists.

"After 14 years of experience, we have a clear vision and firm beliefs about the factors that ensure data projects have a genuine impact and create new competitive advantages," comments Jean-BaptisteBouzige, founder and CEO of Ekimetrics. "This investment will allow us to go even further and faster in affirming our unique positioning at the intersection of business and data science."

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Unique positioning and services on the market

Ekimetrics' approach involving off-the-shelf modules has led to its strong growth, occupying a middle ground between players offering "tailor-made" solutions - which have low levels of standardisation and so struggle to secure successes for the company at large - and powerful platforms that lack the flexibility to overcome time-to-market constraints. Ekimetrics helps its clients avoid the main pitfalls of data projects, for which high failure rates (over 75%) and lengthy implementation phases remain the norm. Ekimetrics' long-standing, close relationships with its clients, including major international firms, has demonstrated the market need for this approach

Fresh capital to strengthen the company's positioning, enhance its services and fuel global expansion

This fresh capital will enable Ekimetrics to speed up the rollout of its Core Data Science Platform, expand its library of off-the-shelf business modules, enhance its technological and methodological assets, and so provide a more innovative, agile service.

It will also serve as a catalyst for the growth of its subsidiaries abroad, including the United States and China.

Emmanuel Laillier, Head of Private Equity at Tikehau Capital, declared: "Ekimetrics is a highly innovative company that has carved out a niche for itself in a rapid-growthmarket. Its solutions have garnered recognition from a whole host of clients and the company enjoys excellent prospects for development. We are delighted to be able to contribute to its growth and provide some of the resources that will ensure it achieves its goals. We plan to draw on our investment team's wealth of digital and technological expertise, as well as our international network of offices in America, Europe and Asia, to assist Ekimetrics as it seeks to accelerate the expansion of its business activities and ultimately position itself as the global leader in the field of AI."

"We were impressed and won over by the sheer quality of the vision, technology and teams at Ekimetrics, as well as its trajectory so far, and we are pleased to be helping the management team to implement their growth strategy," adds Luc Heinrich, Managing Director of the Bpifrance MidCap fund.

"This partnership with Tikehau Capital and Bpifrance creates an invaluable asset, as it will provide added impetus for our international expansion while also confirming our status as France's AI champion," notes Quentin Michard, who founded Ekimetrics and is now responsible for its development strategy.

The players involved in the transaction are the following:

Investors:

  • Tikehau Capital: Emmanuel Laillier, Helene Henry-Prince,Marie-Sarah Mailliard, Alexandre Loungar, Julien Boubal
  • Bpifrance: Luc Heinrich, Kevin Portron, Charlotte Fadlallah Beroud

Advising the company:

- Clipperton Finance: Thibaut Revel, Stéphane Valorge, Martin Vielle, Wael Abou Karam, Anne- Sophie Luo

  • Jones Day: Renaud Bonnet, Paul Maurin
  • Exelmans: Manuel Manas, Eric Chan

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Advising the investors:

  • Neovian Partners: Patrick Richer, Vincent Locanetto, Annick Kervella, Jérôme Alperovitch
  • Ernst & Young Transaction Services: Emmanuel Picard, Colin Garnier, Kim Mai Pho
  • Goodwin Procter: Thomas Maitrejean, Felicien Bardsley, Pauline Louis

About Ekimetrics

Ekimetrics was founded in 2006 and is a European leader in "data science for business". The company's mission is to help customers audit their data opportunities, enrich their analytical capital, and deploy actionable solutions to maximise their marketing and operational performance, and re-energise business models. With more than 240 data scientists, Ekimetrics is one of the largest independent teams in Europe. Ekimetric's focus is to deliver short-term gains while ensuring the long-term development of its customers' data assets. Since its inception Ekimetrics has deployed more than 1000 data science missions in over 50 countries, generating more than 1 billion euros in profits for its customers. www.ekimetrics.com

About Tikehau Capital

About Tikehau Capital Tikehau Capital is an asset management and investment group with €27.2 billion of assets under management (at 30 September 2020) and shareholder equity of €2.8 billion (at 30 June 2020). The Group invests in various asset classes (private debt, real assets, private equity and capital markets strategies) including through its asset management subsidiaries that act on behalf of institutional and private investors. Controlled by its managers alongside leading institutional partners, Tikehau Capital employs more than 570 people (at 30 June 2020) in its offices based in Paris, London, Amsterdam, Brussels, Luxembourg, Madrid, Milan, New York, Seoul, Singapore and Tokyo.

Tikehau Capital is listed in compartment A of the regulated Euronext Paris market (ISIN code: FR0013230612;

Ticker: TKO.FP)www.tikehaucapital.com

About Bpifrance

Bpifrance is the French national investment bank: it finances businesses - at every stage of their development - through loans, guarantees, equity investments and export insurances. Bpifrance also provides extra financial services (training, consultancy) to help entrepreneurs meet their challenges (innovation, export…).

For more information, please visitwww.bpifrance.fr-https://presse.bpifrance.frFollow us on Follow us on Twitter: @Bpifrance - @BpifrancePresse

Press contacts:

Ekimetrics:

Sophie Desroseaux - Tél +33 (0)1 70 82 52 44

Sophie.desroseaux@ekimetrics.com

Tikehau Capital:

Valérie Sueur - Tel: +33 1 40 06 39 30

UK - Prosek Partners: Clare Glynn +44 (0)7912 107 653

press@tikehaucapital.com

Bpifrance:

Sophie Santandrea - sophie.santandrea@bpifrance.fr- Tel.: +33 1 45 65 51 62

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Tikehau Capital SC published this content on 30 November 2020 and is solely responsible for the information contained therein. Distributed by Public, unedited and unaltered, on 30 November 2020 07:50:05 UTC