January 2019
CYBERSECURITY
Leading European Cybersecurity Group results from joining S21sec and Excellium, through a new Sonae IM investment in Benelux
This operation creates one of the most relevant cybersecurity services pure players in Europe, counting with more than 500 professionals and direct presence in 13 cities across 6 countries
Sonae Investment Management (Sonae IM), the technology investment arm of Sonae, announced it has acquired a majority stake on Excellium, a market-leading managed security services provider from Luxembourg, with presence in Belgium and more than 100 experts.
Excellium provides professional and managed cybersecurity services, namely, through its proprietary SOC Eyeguard Solution (security operations center), being one of the market leaders in the Luxembourgish and Belgian markets. The company holds a strong blue chip customer base which includes the most renowned financial institutions, governmental entities and other economic groups with operations in the Benelux region.
As a result of this transaction, together with S21sec, a leading and pioneer Iberian cybersecurity company with a strong presence in Latin America, both companies overall, based on their complementarity, further enhance their comprehensive services and technologies’ portfolio, enabling customers to have access to an even more complete, innovative and integrated suite of cybersecurity solutions.
Based on the soaring activity, complexity and impact of cybersecurity incidents, this operation is especially important as it further augments the range of capabilities that both companies have at their disposal to continue developing and providing the most highly-specialized services to combat cyber threats and cybercrime.
The significant European scale and cross-country presence of this group of cybersecurity companies will be key to address the increasingly challenging needs of all organizations and specially the requirements of those large and multi-national companies operating in the European space, while ensuring agile and fast response from specialized teams close to the customer.
In the highly fragmented cybersecurity landscape, this process results in one of the largest independent European Managed Security Services groups, with more than 500 professionals, strengthening its capabilities to pursue an accelerated growth plan.
Carlos Alberto Silva, Executive Director of Sonae IM, considers that “this transaction restates our strong positioning as one of the largest pure play cybersecurity companies in Europe. Apart from the solid management team and market recognition of the company, Excellium represents our gateway to the high-potential markets of Central Europe. Following the 2016 acquisition of Sysvalue in Portugal, the S21sec&Nextel merger during 2018, this acquisition reinforces the commitment to our consolidation plan for the sector. In addition, this transaction represents an important milestone on our trajectory, by being our 10th investment in cybersecurity since 2014.”
Christophe Bianco, Managing Partner of Excellium, considers that “with Sonae IM, Excellium has found not only a financial Investor but also a partner who knows the sector and own interesting assets in our domain. It opens for us the possibility to write a new chapter of development with significant capabilities.”
About Sonae IM
Sonae IM is the technology investment arm of Sonae Group (www.sonae.pt/en/), a multinational exceeding 6 billion Euros in revenues with core activities in retail and telecommunications. Sonae Investment Management invests in cybersecurity, retail and telecommunications technology companies. Sonae IM holds more than 20 investments, encompassing stakes in companies from early stage to growth stage. Sonae IM has also invested as LP in three VC funds, managed by Armilar Venture Partners, with stakes in 22 companies, which includes Outsystems and Feedzai.
About Excellium
Excellium (www.excellium-services.com) is a company offering advisory and technology integration services in the domain of information security. Founded in 2012, in the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg, the company has a workforce of more than 120 employees, and a particular strength in the areas of Application Security and Incident Management. Excellium holds a diversified customer base, currently helping more than 140 clients in 7 geographies (Belgium, France, Luxembourg, Morocco, Tunisia, Senegal, and the Ivory Coast). The company was recently awarded by ITOne as the “Best IT Security Provider of the year” in Luxembourg.
