PROCAD more than doubled in size during LEA’s three-year ownership
Transaction marks already the third strategic exit by LEA’s B2B tech fund focusing on leading software companies in the DACH region

Karlsruhe, Germany, November 17, 2021 – German technology investor LEA Partners (“LEA”) today announced that it has agreed on the sale of PROCAD Group (“PROCAD”), a leading software vendor for the digitalization of product lifecycle management, to Revalize, the worldwide leader in sector-specific revenue operations software for manufacturers, their distributors and their specifiers. Revalize is backed by TA Associates and Hg. The terms of the transaction were not disclosed. The transaction is expected to close later this year, following competition approval.

Founded in 1985 and headquartered in Karlsruhe, Germany, PROCAD offers proven product lifecycle management (PLM) and product data management (PDM) solutions that enable companies to manage their product lifecycles in a world of ever-growing complexity, delivering a substantial efficiency boost to customers in the discrete manufacturing sector.

LEA partnered with PROCAD in early 2018, in line with its strategy to invest in software companies with leading market positions, substantial growth potential and high levels of recurring revenue. LEA recognized the unique strategic position of the business and supported PROCAD in its transition from a founder led business into the largest independently held PLM/PDM software vendor for discrete manufacturing in the DACH region with annual revenues in excess of EUR 30 million.

Gerhard Knoch, CEO of PROCAD, said:
“PROCAD has enjoyed an incredibly successful period during its partnership with LEA. In a comparatively short period of time, we have built one of the leading players in Europe and already tapped into the Asian and American markets. The strategic initiatives we have undertaken have proven to be very valuable, whilst the focused M&A activity has expanded our offering and market position.”

Sebastian Müller, founder of LEA, added:
“PROCAD is an outstanding example for our dedicated investment focus on creating software companies with leading market positions, high degrees of recurring revenues and multiple value generation opportunities through strategic change. After a succession strategy for the business was implemented by bringing in Gerhard Knoch as CEO from Infor and Johann Dornbach as CTO from SAP, we heavily supported PROCAD’s next generation cloud product suite. Earlier in 2021 we funded the mergers with keytech and ACATEC, creating a market leader with over 250 employees in 12 locations, over 1,350 customers and more than 125,000 users. During our ownership PROCAD more than doubled its customer as well as revenue base and experienced a material acceleration of EBITDA growth.”

Following the exit of BELLIN to Coupa Software as well as IDL to insightsoftware in 2020, this transaction already marks the third strategic exit out of LEA’s B2B tech fund. LEA was advised by GCA Altium and Milbank on this transaction.