Investment led by Astorg and BeyondNetZero, General Atlantic’s Climate Investing Venture; Ratings and Insights Leader Leverages Sustainability Intelligence to Fundamentally Transform Supply Chains, Private Equity, ESG-linked Loans, Climate Impact and More
NEW YORK and PARIS – June 14, 2022 – EcoVadis, the leading provider of business sustainability ratings, has raised $500M with plans to accelerate its vision of influencing every business decision with sustainability intelligence, becoming a sustainability impact unicorn.
The global investment round – the largest equity fundraising for a sustainability data SaaS company to date – brings EcoVadis’ total capital raised to over $725M and was led by Astorg and BeyondNetZero, General Atlantic’s climate investing venture, with participation from Singapore-based GIC and Princeville Capital’s Climate Technology Fund.
“This investment is validation of EcoVadis’ model for scaling impact across global value chains, despite the pandemic, geopolitical or financial headwinds," said Frédéric Trinel, co-founder and co-CEO of EcoVadis. “We continue to experience record demand as more companies are empowered to integrate the planet and society into their business operations. We expect this investment to enable us to build on our traction to meet companies - including SMEs and private companies - at any stage of their sustainability journey, and collaboratively drive improvement in practices and impact at scale.”
More than 95,000 businesses across 200 industry categories and 175 countries rely on EcoVadis to monitor and improve the sustainability performance of their own business and trading partners. Today, EcoVadis - a pioneer in the use of sustainability intelligence in procurement and global supply chains - is used across a growing number of use cases, including Scope 3 carbon emissions management, private equity, ESG-linked loans, supply chain finance, third-party risk and resilience and more.
“We invest in companies that have the potential to combat climate change at scale,” said Rhea Hamilton, Managing Director at BeyondNetZero. “We believe EcoVadis has all the critical elements to make global impact and a meaningful contribution to the net zero transition, including a high-quality business model, strong leadership, innovative technology and a bold vision for driving ESG-oriented transformations across supply chains and industries. We are excited to back EcoVadis as the company enters a new phase of growth and look forward to partnering with its management team as we aim to further accelerate the company’s global expansion and climate impact.”
EcoVadis continues to experience rapid growth across its global customer base and network. Over the past 12 months, EcoVadis’ revenue grew 50% and its global workforce reached 1,300 employees, 15,000 companies engaged with EcoVadis' new Carbon Action Module, and it achieved more than 500,000 companies screened using EcoVadis IQ.
In addition to its own growth, EcoVadis has become a partner of choice in bringing sustainability intelligence into all key business decision points across its ecosystem of enterprise, procurement, financial and risk management platforms. Building on EcoVadis’ existing partnerships with Microsoft, SAP, Celonis, Coupa, Taulia and 40 others, this investment positions the company to scale impact and positively influence decision-makers around the world.
“We have tracked EcoVadis for many years and have been impressed with its strong leadership position and track record of fast global growth”, said Benoit Ficheur, Partner at Astorg. “Further, Astorg has been the first private equity client of EcoVadis, using its services to assess and measure our portfolio companies’ ESG performance and to raise sustainability-linked financing. This partnership has had a transformative impact across our portfolio, contributing to making Astorg one of the leaders in ESG and sustainability across the private equity world. Going forward we see very meaningful opportunities to support the company in its ambition to become the standard for private equity and finance”.
Previous funding rounds have included investments from CVC Growth Partners II (“CVC Growth Partners”) in January 2020 and Partech in 2016, as well as strategic participation from Bain & Company in February 2020. CVC Growth Partners, the growth-oriented middle-market technology investment arm of CVC Capital Partners, remains the largest institutional shareholder in the business.
EcoVadis plans to leverage the funds to accelerate its global scale-up, deepen its artificial intelligence and machine learning capabilities, make strategic acquisitions and fulfill its vision as a purpose-led company.
The transaction is expected to close in Q2 2022 following regulatory approvals.
For more information, visit www.ecovadis.com.
About EcoVadis
EcoVadis is a purpose-led company whose mission is to provide trusted business sustainability ratings. Businesses of all sizes rely on EcoVadis’ expert intelligence and evidence-based ratings to monitor and improve the sustainability performance of their business and trading partners. Its actionable scorecards, benchmarks, carbon action tools, and insights guide an improvement journey for environmental, social and ethical practices across 200 industry categories, 175 countries. Industry leaders such as Amazon, Johnson & Johnson, L’Oréal, Unilever, LVMH, Salesforce, Bridgestone, BASF and JPMorgan are among the 95,000 businesses that collaborate with EcoVadis to drive resilience, sustainable growth and positive impact worldwide. Learn more on ecovadis.com, Twitter or LinkedIn.
GP Bullhound acted as financial advisor to EcoVadis and its shareholders.
About Astorg
Astorg is a European private equity firm with over €17 billion of assets under management. Astorg works with entrepreneurs and management teams to acquire market leading global companies headquartered in Europe or the US, providing them with the strategic guidance, governance and capital they need to achieve their growth plans. Enjoying a distinct entrepreneurial culture, a long-term shareholder perspective and a lean decision-making body, Astorg has valuable industry expertise in healthcare, software, technology, business services and technology-based industrial companies. Astorg has offices in London, Paris, New York, Frankfurt, Milan and Luxembourg.
About BeyondNetZero
BeyondNetZero is the climate investing venture of General Atlantic, a leading global growth equity firm. BeyondNetZero invests in growth companies delivering innovative climate solutions that have the potential to meet and exceed net zero emissions targets, with a focus on decarbonization, energy efficiency, resource conservation and emissions management. This venture combines General Atlantic’s growth equity experience and global network with a team of experienced climate investors, advisors and industry executives who bring decades of experience in both addressing climate-focused problems and building pioneering growth companies. For more information on BeyondNetZero, please visit: https://beyond-net-zero.com.
About General Atlantic
General Atlantic is a leading global growth equity firm with more than four decades of experience providing capital and strategic support for over 445 growth companies throughout its history. Established in 1980 to partner with visionary entrepreneurs and deliver lasting impact, the firm combines a collaborative global approach, sector specific expertise, a long-term investment horizon and a deep understanding of growth drivers to partner with great entrepreneurs and management teams to scale innovative businesses around the world. General Atlantic currently has over $84 billion in assets under management inclusive of all products as of December 31, 2021, and more than 215 investment professionals based in New York, Amsterdam, Beijing, Hong Kong, Jakarta, London, Mexico City, Mumbai, Munich, Palo Alto, São Paulo, Shanghai, Singapore, and Stamford. For more information on General Atlantic, please visit: www.generalatlantic.com.
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