Oakley Capital acquires majority stake in German open access platform vitroconnect

Gütersloh/London — Oakley Capi­tal (“Oakley”), a leading pan-Euro­­pean mid-market private equity inves­tor, has acqui­red a majo­rity stake in vitro­con­nect, a leading open access plat­form in Germany, through its Oakley Capi­tal Origin Fund II. This was announ­ced by the company. The invest­ment is being made toge­ther with foun­der and CEO Dirk Paster­nack and the manage­ment team, who will conti­nue to lead the company. The tran­sac­tion is expec­ted to be comple­ted by the end of the first half of 2024, subject to the neces­sary regu­la­tory approvals.

Güter­s­­loh-based vitro­con­nect brings broad­band connec­tion provi­ders toge­ther with resel­lers using a proprie­tary soft­ware plat­form and inter­face logic. The company’s custo­mers include most of the leading tele­com­mu­ni­ca­ti­ons provi­ders in Germany. In addi­tion, vitro­con­nect offers process auto­ma­tion, network opera­tion, trading and white label services via its “Carrier Aggre­ga­tion Plat­form” (CAP).

The CAP-gene­ra­­ted open access process services from vitro­con­nect help custo­mers to use broad­band networks more effi­ci­ently and reduce the tran­sac­tion costs of all parties invol­ved. Thanks to this unique offe­ring, the company has conti­nuously expan­ded its custo­mer base of network opera­tors and resel­lers. In addi­tion, mini­mal custo­mer fluc­tua­tion, strong custo­mer loyalty and a high propor­tion of recur­ring sales have contri­bu­ted to consis­tent and profi­ta­ble double-digit growth over the past three years.

As a pioneer of whole­sale acti­vi­ties in the highly frag­men­ted and tech­no­lo­gi­cally hete­ro­ge­neous German broad­band market, vitro­con­nect has an excep­tio­nally good market posi­tion to bene­fit from the strong growth in “Fiber to the Home” (FTTH) tech­no­logy and to help reduce the gap between Germany and other Euro­pean count­ries in the fiber optic market.

Curr­ently, the propor­tion of German house­holds with a connec­tion to the fiber-optic broad­band network lags far behind the rest of Europe. This will lead to signi­fi­cant invest­ments and considera­ble growth poten­tial in the coming years, with a simul­ta­neous increase in the number of house­holds with fiber optic connec­tions from 3 million today to 29 million in 2029 and 39 million in 2035.

The invest­ment in vitro­con­nect fits seam­lessly into Oakley’s long track record of part­ne­ring with high-growth, profi­ta­ble, foun­­der-led compa­nies. Oakley’s most rele­vant tran­sac­tions in adja­cent sectors include soft­ware compa­nies such as WebPros, Hori­zons Opti­cal and Alerce.

The invest­ment in vitro­con­nect is the first invest­ment from Origin Fund II and follows the recently announ­ced acqui­si­tion of Hori­zons Opti­cal via its prede­ces­sor fund, Origin Fund I.

Peter Dubens, Co-Foun­­der and Mana­ging Part­ner of Oakley Capi­talsaid: “vitro­con­nect is excel­lently posi­tio­ned to bene­fit from the market uphe­aval in Germany trig­ge­red by the switch to fiber optic tech­no­logy. The company has an excep­tio­nally strong market posi­tion based on custo­mer focus, high tech­ni­cal compe­tence and an excel­lent manage­ment team. We look forward to working with Dirk Paster­nack and his team, combi­ning vitro­con­nec­t’s core compe­ten­cies with our own indus­try exper­tise and acce­le­ra­ting the company’s future growth together.”

Dirk Paster­nack, foun­der and CEO of vitro­con­nect, said: “We were convin­ced by Oakley’s exten­sive exper­tise in the soft­ware and tele­com­mu­ni­ca­ti­ons sector and their proven ability to support compa­nies in phases of market disrup­tion. In Oakley, we have found an ideal part­ner to jointly embark on the next phase of vitro­con­nec­t’s growth plan.”