Genna Elvin’s (and François Gaspard’s) company will be able to continue to accelerate its growth and, in particular, enter the American market. (Photo: Simon Verjus/Maison Moderne/Archives)

Genna Elvin’s (and François Gaspard’s) company will be able to continue to accelerate its growth and, in particular, enter the American market. (Photo: Simon Verjus/Maison Moderne/Archives)

As part of its strategy to focus on technological innovation, Wendel Growth announced that it will take a minority stake in Tadaweb for €15m in the first quarter. This is its first intervention on European soil.

On the evening of Wednesday 4 January, Wendel publicly confirmed that it would take a minority stake in Tadaweb for €15m.

This will be the first investment in Europe and the second after the one in AlphaSense, a Wall Street darling that became a unicorn last June thanks to a $225m Series C financing round led by Goldman Sachs and Viking Global Investors.

This is good news for the Luxembourg-based company, whose platforms help analysts collect and organise public data for analysts, which, when asked by Delano’s sister publication Paperjam, did not want to talk about its results for 2021 or 2022. But according to Wendel’s investment strategy, revenues should be in the range of €10m to €20m for Series B investments, with more than 100 full-time equivalents. Tadaweb currently employs 124 people at its Luxembourg headquarters and offices in Paris, London and Ottawa.

Moving into new markets including the US

“This investment marks another major milestone in our history. It will accelerate our expansion globally, including our entry into the United States and additional European markets. We have been a profitable company for over five years, and this represents a pivotal step for the company,” said co-founder , according to the Wendel statement. However, the annual results published in the commercial register show a deficit of €126,170 in 2019 and €417,534 in 2018, while those for 2021 are not published.

Elvin said she prefers to note that the cash flow remains positive and without external capital since a relatively small investment in 2016, and also mentions the extension of Tadaweb’s headquarters to 4,000m2 in Belval; the opening of offices in Paris, London and Ottawa; and the recent recruitment of three executives, Tracey Trewin (ex-Microsoft) as technology director since March, Bruno Monfils (ex-Amazon) as operational director since September and Giri Fox (ex-Microsoft, Rackspace, Apple and IBM) as commercial director since August.

Under the supervision of financial director Jérôme Michiels, Wendel has invested seven times in funds or funds of funds, a sector monitored by Chris Witherspoon, and once in a startup, AlphaSense, a sector entrusted to Antoine Iszak, the former investment director of the French Public Investment Bank. This represents €167m (+51 in 2022) of the €500m that the group intends to invest by 2024. In this context, one to four envelopes of €10m to €50m will be invested each year in technology startups.

This story was first published in French on . It has been translated and edited for Delano.