Sofidnev, a Belgian private equity firm, has invested in Merkator, the geospatial company with a footprint across multiple nations. Though Sofindev will get a majority stake, CEO Geert De Coensel will continue in his present role, retaining strategic interests for future growth and development.
Founded in 2008 in the Netherlands, Merkator is known for its innovative offerings. With the motto ‘Safer Streets & Better Networks’, it provides overground as well as underground solutions across utilities, smart cities, telcos, and network operators.
In the realm of smart cities, Merkator has a special edge. Over the years, it has supplied geospatial solutions to over 180 smart cities globally.
What does the move augur?
Merkator fetching investments at a critical period when the gross tech funding in Europe has been cut to half — from $ 85 billion to $45 billion, as compared to 2022 — indicates not only the salience of geospatial solutions but their vital role in everything from designing resilient city architecture, smart mobility, to low latency, ultra-high speed telecom.
At a time when Europe, as well as the world at large, is wrangling with multiple challenges, from food and energy security, to facilitating a carbon-neutral transition, the need for advanced, precise, near real-time, and actionable geospatial insights is felt more acutely than ever before.
The funding and majority stake reiterate the vital role of geospatial solutions as the fulcrum of digital transformation and sustainability initiatives, offering promise even amidst a not-so-robust market demand and anxieties of slump.
“Sofindev’s decision to invest in the Merkator Group is a culmination of the exceptional path we have taken in recent years in establishing a leading player in geospatial technology in the Benelux”, says Geert De Coensel, CEO, Merkator Group.
Onwards Digital Twin
Last year, Merkator acquired GIM nv, including its affiliate GIM Wallonie srl, a Belgian provider of geospatial data engineering, geospatial artificial intelligence, and spatial application development.
One of the main solutions offered by GIM is Belmap, a Digital Twin solution encompassing all details about buildings in the Benelux region. Belmap is used by Banks and insurance companies, utilities, logistics service providers, and multiple companies across sectors.
From tiny island nations in Polynesia to Singapore and Spain, building a national Digital Twin to address a host of vexing issues is the leading priority of a lot of countries.
A Digital Twin is simply inconceivable without state-of-the-art geospatial data layers. Be it developmental goals or disaster mitigation, Digital Twin would offer peerless insights and is the crucial node for the realization of SDGs.
Diverse Portfolio; Maiden Geospatial
Sofindnev started in Belgium in 1991, a rather watershed year for Europe, which witnessed the toppling of the old, and the birth of the new.
With a primary focus on small and medium-sized enterprises, it boasts a very diverse portfolio, from food processing to fire maintenance systems and forklift trucks.
While the firm is no stranger to the high-tech and digital sector – as shown by investments in Expertum, a SAP consulting company; Mediagenix, multimedia management software; and Christiaens, an IT services provider – this is its first major stake in a geospatial company.
Though technology convergence and geospatial transcending conventional markets is quite perceptible, what often goes below the radar is established VCs and equity firms keeping a tab on innovative geospatial and space companies that offer targeted solutions.
On the other side of the Atlantic, just last year, a leading equity firm, known for a quite versatile portfolio, acquired one of the biggest Earth Observation firms, in what was supposedly the biggest space acquisition.
The investment in Merkator also demonstrates the shift in the industry from generic services to customized, user-focused solutions.
As per De Coensel, it confirms the immense potential that the combination of people, technology, and data offers to the market.
“The partnership also highlights our shared values and culture”, he adds.
Jan Camerlynck, Carlo Daelemans and Jean-Roger de Bandt, Partners at Sofindev, earnestly believe that Merkator Group is an excellent growth platform on which other complementary companies, with which great synergies can be found, can join.
Can there be a better litmus test of tangible market interest and outreach towards geospatial and its innovative ripple effect?
