The M&A Watch: IT Services and Software in Latin America – Sept. 2021
By Carolina D'Alencon | September 15, 2021
M&A WATCH: LATIN AMERICA – SEPTEMBER 2021
The activity is predominantly led by Brazil and Mexico, with 262 and 26 deals worth US$39.6 billion and US$8.8 billion, respectively. The markets with the most financial gain were Financial Services (US$23 billion) and TMT (US$13.4 billion).
The Tech sector continues to be active, led by Brazil. However, Brazil is far from being the only promising player in LATAM; Argentina, Chile, and Colombia became the center for many start-ups stories turned into unicorns and deals in the later stage of a company’s development, such as M&A.
Over the past month, there were many deals to highlight from in the LATAM region. When looking at the landscape, we can see interest coming from investors across the globe and expect the activity to remain strong.
Martin Sorrell’s S4 Capital Acquires Zemoga
Martin Sorrell’s S4 Capital acquires tech services group Zemoga, headquartered in Colombia. Zemoga is a provider of digital services that focuses on catering to clients’ needs and offering solutions at the intersection between technology and advertising. Zemoga offers product design, engineering, and delivery services to enterprise clients, thereby enabling them to digitize their internal and customer-facing operation like Bridgestone, Sony, Roku, and Morningstar.
S4 is looking to make investments in the Tech sector and compete with Accenture and Globant, two companies that have strengthened their technology acquisitions in the Marketing and Digital sector. Zemoga would help S4 take a significant step towards building a third practice area around technology services.
Ser Educacional Acquires Prova Fácil
Ser Educacional acquires software company in the Educational space, Prova Fácil, for an undisclosed amount. Prova Fácil develops a software intended to monitor exams and assessments, with the end purpose of improving the educational system.
The company’s software improves the teacher’s time allocation with an evidence management system that automatically corrects objective questions, enabling students and educational institutions to have access to a content bank and grants them the possibility of sharing issues among themselves. Listed on the Brazil’s stock exchange, Ser Educacional aims to improve its educational capabilities and further develop its ecosystem of previous transactions.
Unidas Acquires Getrak
Unidas, a subsidiary of Unidas Frotas, acquired Getrak for BRL 120 million. Getrak is a software that aims to track vehicles in Latin America. The logistics software company platform offers an integrated database for advanced telemetry, integrated logistics, routing, preventive maintenance, driver control, risk management, online reporting, and more. Getrak enables clients to easily keep track of their vehicles from their smartphones and tablets.
Unidas is a provider of vehicle rental and fleet management services. The acquisition aims to materialize some synergies and help Unidas offer a more comprehensive range of services and solutions for drivers and car owners.
Trivest Partners Invests Growth Capital in Veritran
Argentina-based Veritran received growth investment that pushes the company’s valuation to $225 million from Trivest Partners. Veritran is a developer of a low-code platform intended to simplify business application development. The company’s platform integrates exponential technologies into legacy systems and improves deployment times and delivery costs with a visual and intuitive model and a drag-and-drop interface, enabling clients to build secure and flexible business-critical applications without writing a single line of code.
Trivest Partners is a private equity firm based in Florida engaged in growth investments for family-owned and founder-led businesses operating in the Consumer & Retail, Healthcare, Niche Manufacturing, Business Services, and Value-Added Distribution sectors across the United States and Canada.
The Wall Street Journal announced that the fund is backing the company out of the Trivest Growth Investment Fund II LP, which has roughly $450 million in committed capital. For the most part, Trivest makes investments of $20 million to $60 million from its growth equity funds.
About 7 Mile Advisors
7MA provides specialized Investment Banking & Advisory Services to the professional service firms in the Consumer Products & Retail industries. We help our clients determine the right strategic partners for their businesses, transition ownership, raise capital, grow through acquisitions, and evaluate new markets. We advise our clients on M&A and private capital transactions, and provide unique market insights. Our team brings experience and energy to all of our engagements, with a focus on helping our clients navigate a changing marketplace.
To learn more about how 7 Mile Advisors can help you evaluate and execute on strategic M&A or private capital alternatives for your business, please visit our website www.7mileadvisors.com.
