HGGC, a leading middle market private equity firm, today announced that it has completed the acquisition of etouches (or “the Company”), a top global provider of cloud event management software (EMS) and venue sourcing. HGGC’s investment will help the rapidly growing business expand services and enhance its technology to win a greater share of the $6 billion global EMS market. The prior owners and senior management have re-invested their equity for a substantial minority stake in the business. Terms of the private transaction were not disclosed.
JEGI CLARITY (www.jegiclarity.com), the leading independent investment bank for the global media, information, marketing, software and tech-enabled services sectors, headquartered in New York, NY, represented HGGC in this transaction.
Norwalk, Conn.-based etouches’ end-to-end platform provides event management and venue sourcing solutions to customers of all sizes and all major verticals, addressing a wide range of event management and data needs and complexities. Its state-of-the-art cloud platform brings together hotel & venue sourcing, event marketing & content, registration & logistics, engagement & mobile, and data analytics & ROI solutions. etouches employs a data-and-analytics-driven focus to be able to provide real-time insights, customer engagement and smart solutions to more than 1,300 global customers including Lufthansa, Mastercard, Ticketmaster, Vodafone, BNP Paribas, National Australia Bank, MaryKay, Mazda and NPR. The Company has offices in the US, UK, Belgium, Australia and United Arab Emirates.
“We are very excited to partner with HGGC as we continue to enhance our offering and capitalize on the large whitespace in the market” said Oni Chukwu, CEO. “The HGGC team’s experience in marketing technology gives them a very sophisticated understanding of both the challenges we face and the opportunity in front of us as enterprises transition from single-point solutions to suite solutions that manage the entire event lifecycle.”
Throughout its growth over the past nine years, etouches has maintained the highest level of service and quality, winning multiple awards including Superior Customer Service, Best Event Management Technology, Best Event Management Software, and Best Event Management Solutions. etouches was also named Best Place to Work while achieving a revenue retention rate over 100%.
“Under Oni’s leadership, etouches has become a premier provider of EMS solutions, more than doubling revenues since 2014,” said Steve Young, Co-Founder and Managing Director of HGGC. “We’re confident that the additional resources we can bring to bear will accelerate etouches’ already impressive growth and outpace the competition. Because we see etouches as a growth investment just starting to reach its potential, we’ve made this acquisition without leverage and are putting cash on the balance sheet to ensure nothing slows the company’s trajectory.”
Over the past 12 months, etouches has executed 46,000 events totaling 5.8 million registrations.
“Most people don’t realize that event management is an enormous business expense, accounting for up to 3 percent of total revenue and nearly a quarter of all B2B marketing budgets—approximately $14 billion,” said Farouk Hussein, Principal at HGGC. “Organizations are hungry for a broad solution set that can be used by multiple stakeholders to address all event management needs, as well as a centralized data source that is critical for event analytics. etouches provides that solution, which tracks real-time customer engagement, drives overall lower event costs and increases ROI and productivity.”
etouches is the final platform investment made from HGGC’s $1.33 billion second fund. It also represents the seventh marketing services technology platform the firm has invested in, following AutoAlert, Dealer FX, Integrity, MyWebGrocer, Selligent, and SSI.