Stuttgart/ Chicago — Sphera, a global provi­der of inte­gra­ted risk manage­ment soft­ware and infor­ma­tion services focu­sed on envi­ron­men­tal health and safety, opera­tio­nal risk and product steward­ship, announ­ces the signing of an agree­ment to acquire thinkstep from the previous private equity inves­tors Gimv and Next47 known, Thinkstep is a soft­ware and consul­ting services company based in Stutt­gart, Germany, specia­li­zing in corpo­rate sustaina­bi­lity and product steward­ship. — The closing of the tran­sac­tion is subject to custo­mary German regu­la­tory appr­ovals for mergers and acquisitions.

thinkstep has successfully trans­for­med its busi­ness model into Soft­­ware-as-a-Service over the past few years and has seen attrac­tive growth. Combi­ned with thinkstep’s outstan­ding custo­mer base, this tran­si­tion enab­led a signi­fi­cant step forward in the company’s development.

“thinkstep’s soft­ware (in the cloud and on-premise), their data and exper­tise in the corpo­rate sustaina­bi­lity and product steward­ship markets, advance our goal of crea­ting a safer, more sustainable and more produc­tive world,” said Paul Marushka, presi­dent and CEO of Sphera. “thinkstep’s presence in the EMEA and APAC regi­ons expands our geogra­phic reach and allows us to better serve our global custo­mer base.”

thinkstep’s enter­prise sustaina­bi­lity soft­ware, imple­men­ta­tion and consul­ting services simplify sustaina­bi­lity report­ing, risk manage­ment, audi­ting, stra­tegy and resource opti­miza­tion across the enter­prise. The company’s product steward­ship soft­ware and consul­ting services help design more sustainable products and manage product compli­ance throug­hout the cycle.

“thinkstep offers clients more than 30 years of expe­ri­ence in the field of sustaina­bi­lity,” said Jan Poul­sen, CEO of thinkstep. “Adding our advan­ced soft­ware solu­ti­ons, exten­sive LCA and ecolo­gi­cal profile data­ba­ses, and sustaina­bi­lity exper­tise to Sphera’s envi­ron­men­tal health and safety products makes for a highly attrac­tive busi­ness combi­na­tion that will allow us to more fully serve our exten­sive custo­mer base in the future. We are deligh­ted to become part of Sphera and thank our former part­ners Gimv and Next47 for their exper­tise and stra­te­gic support in the deve­lo­p­ment of our busi­ness model.

About Sphera
Sphera is a global provi­der of inte­gra­ted risk manage­ment soft­ware and infor­ma­tion services focu­sed on envi­ron­ment, health and safety (EHS), opera­tio­nal risk and product steward­ship. Serving over 3,000 custo­mers and more than 1 million unique users in over 70 count­ries, the company has been commit­ted to crea­ting a safer, more sustainable and more produc­tive world by impro­ving opera­tio­nal excel­lence for more than 30 years.

Infor­ma­tion about thinkstep
Stut­t­­gart-based thinkstep enables compa­nies around the world to succeed with sustaina­bi­lity. thinkstep’s soft­ware products, data­ba­ses and consul­ting services help compa­nies achieve opera­tio­nal excel­lence, exploit product inno­va­tion poten­tial, increase brand value and comply with regu­la­tory requi­re­ments. The company’s 20 offices around the world serve over 8,000 clients.

Gimv infor­ma­tion
Gimv is a Euro­pean invest­ment company with almost 40 years of expe­ri­ence in private equity and is listed on Euron­ext Brussels. The company curr­ently mana­ges a port­fo­lio of invest­ments of EUR 1.1 billion in appro­xi­m­ately 50 port­fo­lio compa­nies. Total sales amount to EUR 2.75 billion with 14,000 employees. As a reco­gni­zed market leader for selec­ted invest­ment plat­forms, Gimv finds inno­va­tive, dyna­mic compa­nies with high growth poten­tial and supports them on their way to market leader­ship. Gimv’s four invest­ment plat­forms are Connec­ted Consu­mer, Health & Care, Smart Indus­tries and Sustainable Cities. Each plat­form has an expe­ri­en­ced team in Gimv’s home markets — the Bene­lux, France and DACH — and is supported by an exten­sive inter­na­tio­nal network of experts. For more infor­ma­tion about Gimv, visit www.gimv.com.

Next47 infor­ma­tion

Next47 is a global venture capi­tal firm of Siemens that invests in and part­ners with compa­nies that think big and build compa­nies that define their indus­tries. Next47 has offices in Boston, Beijing, London, Munich, Paris, Palo Alto and Stock­holm. The company provi­des start­ups with unique access to one of the world’s largest port­fo­lios of custo­mers in the indus­trial, energy and infra­struc­ture sectors, as well as rele­vant back­ground tech­no­logy exper­tise rele­vant to these custo­mers. For more infor­ma­tion about Next47, visit https://next47.com/