goetzpartners advised INVISION

Fortlane Partners Corporate Finance advised INVISION Beteiligungsberatung GmbH ("INVISION"), a leading investor focused on mid-sized companies headquartered in German speaking regions, on the acquisition of a majority stake in N3K Network Systems ("N3K"), a specialised IT solutions provider for mission critical IT infrastructure software solutions from VR Equitypartner and its founding shareholders. Previous shareholder VR Equitypartner will re-invest in the company together with the management.

N3K is a specialised IT solutions provider for mission critical IT infrastructure software solutions in the DDI, Active Directory & Cloud Auditing as well as Privileged Access Management space. N3K is a “One-Stop-Shop” for proprietary software as well as a reseller for third party solutions. The recent acquisition of software developer Cygna Labs resulted in further enhancement of the proprietary software solutions portfolio.

The original founder and current Co-CEO of N3K, Rainer Maurer, will become an advisory board member of the company. Alexander Häcker, currently Co-CEO and leading sales & distribution, becomes new CEO. Christian Ehrenthal, founder of N3K subsidiary Cygna Labs, re-assumes his CEO role at Cygna Labs and will lead business development in the US. Both Alexander Häcker and Christian Ehrenthal will re-invest in the company.

Invision will acquire a majority stake in N3K, while VR Equitypartner re-invests in the company. The success story will be continued both via strategic acquisitions and investments in new and innovative products, which have provided added value to customers for decades.

Alexander Häcker, CEO of N3K, comments: «We are glad to continue our successful journey with both Invision and VR Equitypartner. Together, we will drive organic growth in both Europe and the US as well as acquire strategically important targets in these regions to further strengthen our market positioning.»

«N3K is a market leader in the IT infrastructure market, with impressive growth over the last two decades. We are happy to support Alexander Häcker and the N3K management team on their growth trajectory in partnership with VR Equitypartner.» commented Frank Becker, Managing Partner at Invision.

Note: The transaction is still subject to the approval of the antitrust authorities.

Fortlane Partners Corporate Finance acted as sole and exclusive M&A buy-side advisor to INVISION. This transaction further underlines our competence as advisor of choice in the TMT industry especially IT Services and Software and demonstrates our ability to achieve outperforming process tactics for our customers. We are pleased by the successful outcome amidst the COVID-19 pandemic.

About N3K Network Systems

The company, with headquarters in Heilbronn, Germany, was founded in 2000. N3K is a specialised IT solutions provider for mission critical IT infrastructure software solutions in the DDI, Active Directory & Cloud Auditing as well as Privileged Access Management space. N3K is a “One-Stop-Shop” for proprietary software such as runIP and runIP Radar as well as a reseller for third party solutions. Recently, N3K substantially enhanced its own proprietary product portfolio, as it further developed its existing solutions runIP and runIP Radar as well as through the acquisition of Cygna Labs in the US. The company focuses on establishing long-term sustainable customer relationships as it has built a broad and loyal customer base, including 14 DAX-30 companies. Currently, the company has c. 60 employees.

About INVISION

Since its foundation in 1997, Invision has developed into a leading investor focused on mid-sized companies headquartered in German speaking regions. During this time, Invision invested in over 50 companies, continuously supporting these businesses in developing new growth strategies.

Transaction team:

Ivo Polten

Managing Director

Adelin Trusculescu

Director

Lukas Niedermeier

Analyst