Hyperweek sold to Belgian company - updated

Knowledge Plaza is an enterprise knowledge management pioneer. With HyperWeek combined, it employs 15 specialists and serves 100 clients out of which 50 clients are well known medium-to-large international companies such as EDF, L'Oreal, Orange, Lafarge, Omega, Radio Télévision Suisse Romande (RTS), Touring Club Suisse (TCS), Montreux Jazz, and Nestlé Suisse. Knowledge Plaza now targets a consolidated turnover of 2 million € in 2014.

The acquisition of HyperWeek was not only aimed at covering a bigger European market but also by significant technological synergies between the two companies. Antoine Perdaens, CEO of Knowledge Plaza comments: “HyperWeek is very attractive for us because of its ease of use, its graphical interface, its publishing cababilities and its capabilities to share rich content – all these features will perfectly complement our solution. The next version of our solution will already contain HyperWeek’s core functionalities and will be released in the coming weeks."

The market of social enterprise software in Europe is growing fast and has entered into a fierce consolidation phase. After the acquisition of competitor blueKiwi by the international IT Services company Atos in 2012, the acquisition of HyperWeek now puts Knowledge Plaza in the position of European market leader in the segment of social knowledge management. Julien Pache, COO of investiere, reveals that investiere expected this market consolidation: “One of the main reasons for picking HyperWeek more than a year ago was our conviction that HyperWeek would play a key role in this consolidation”.

This is very good news for the investors who used the investiere-platform to invest around CHF 100’000 into HyperWeek a bit more than one year ago: converting their convertible loans, HyperWeek’s investiere-investors receive shares in Knowledge Plaza totalling to 1.7% of Knowledge Plaza in a very attractive deal that took into account a company valuation of Knowledge Plaza dated back to almost three years ago. While this acquisition constitutes an exit for investiere’s investors, it is not a liquidity event.

HyperWeek will continue to be a Swiss legal entity fully owned by Whatever SA, but investiere’s investors are now shareholders of Whatever SA, a company with a strong European presence and a holistic solution. HyperWeek’s CEO Rafael Briner will take on the role of Chief Marketing Officer and plans to strengthen Knowledge Plaza’s presence in Switzerland, Germany and the Rhône-Alpes region. He comments: “Apart from all the product synergies, we gained 18 months time to market”.

Knowledge plaza will hold a roadshow in Geneva on September 24^th and Zurich on October 1^st  2013 to present its vision on knowledge sharing with experts, startups and clients including Yves-Alain Schwaar, Lafarge, TCS, Squirro & Faveeo. More information on the website of Knowledge Plaza.