Accel-KKR buys majority stake in New Zealand's Unimarket
Accel-KKR, a PE firm created by Accel Partners and KKR, has acquired a majority stake in New Zealand’s Unimarket, a diversified procurement marketplace, for an undisclosed sum.
Founded in 2005, Unimarket offers a catalog-driven supplier marketplace with purchasing, invoice management, and card payment functions for higher education, healthcare, government, research, and financial services. The aim is to simplify and automate the procurement process in a single cloud platform that is easy for administrators, buyers, and suppliers alike.
The company, which has a presence in Australia and the US, plans to use the investment to drive product innovation and strategic acquisitions with a view to building out the customer base across its existing footprint. CEO Peter Kane will continue to lead the company, supported by the existing management team.
"The company has been on our radar for a number of years and has continuously expanded its market leadership position during this time," Phil Cunningham, an operating executive at Accel-KKR, said in a statement. "Given our extensive experience investing in procurement and spend management software, we know we can bring material value to Unimarket's growth strategy."
Accel-KKR has made more than 15 investments in Australasian software companies since its inception in 2000, including Australian workforce management services providers Pegasus, Humanforce, and PageUp. Pegasus was acquired for about $19 million in January 2020 and exited to a US strategic last May.
The standout deal is arguably New Zealand engineering software provider Seequent, which was acquired for an undisclosed sum in 2018 and sold to a NASDAQ-listed industrial infrastructure software player Bentley Systems for a $1.1 billion enterprise valuation.
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