Hg
Software focused private equity firm
London
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Review
Overall Rank: 31
Category: Mid/Large Cap Growth
Category Rank: 14
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Profile
Hg is a leading investor in European and transatlantic software and services businesses, supporting the building of sector-leading enterprises that supply businesses with critical software applications or workflow services, delivering a more automated workplace for their customers.
Our support combines deep end-market knowledge with world-class operational resources, together providing compelling support to entrepreneurial leaders looking to scale their business—businesses that are well invested, enduring and serve their customers well.
With a vast European network and strong presence across North America, our 400 employees and $65bn in funds under management support a portfolio of around 50 businesses, worth over $125 billion aggregate enterprise value, with over 100,000 employees, consistently growing revenues at more than 20% annually.
Awards
2023 Top Private Equity Firms
2022 Top 25 Private Equity Firms
2021 Top 25 Software Investors, Nic Humphries
2019 Top 25 Software Investors, Jean-Baptiste
Key People
Hg is managed by our senior leaders, including:
Nic Humphries, Senior Partner, Executive Chair and Saturn Fund Head
Nic is the Senior Partner and Executive Chairman of Hg and Head of the Saturn fund. He has ultimate responsibility for Hg’s strategy, management and governance. He focuses on larger software investments that provide daily-use mission critical applications for accountants, tax/compliance professionals and designers/engineers/scientists.
Matthew Brockman, Managing Partner; Matthew leads Hg day-to-day with a focus on the Mercury and Genesis funds. Matthew joined Hg in 2010 to lead the creation of the Mercury funds before taking on his current role in 2018. He has acted across many of the investments in the Mercury and Genesis funds. Prior to joining Hg, Matthew was a Partner at Apax Partners.
Justin Von Simson, Managing Partner;
Justin is a Managing Partner, member of the Hg Investment Committee, the Realisation Committee and a member of the Hg Board. Justin is also responsible for Hg’s Munich office.
Alan Cline, Partner and Head of North America;
Alan is Hg’s Head of North America, a Partner and a member of Hg’s Senior Leadership Team. He leads our activity across the USA and Canada. Alan is a highly respected software investor with 20 years’ experience of backing great companies as one of the early employees of Vista Equity Partners. Alan has a long and impressive track record across leadership, tech investing and operations, having built the Foundation Fund within Vista, following hands on experience as a technology entrepreneur.
Steven Batchelor, Partner
Steven is a Partner and a member of Hg’s Board. He is also a member of the Realisation and Valuation Committees, with oversight of Client Services and other related functions. Steven joined Hg in 2003, having previously worked at Morgan Stanley, where he was involved in a number of M&A and capital market related transactions.
Jean-Baptiste Brian, Partner and Genesis Fund Head
JB leads Hg’s Genesis funds and is a Partner and member of the Genesis Investment Committee, focusing on investments in software businesses, with a particular interest in Legal and Compliance as well as ERP and Payroll.
David Issott, Partner and Mercury Fund Head
David leads Hg’s Mercury funds and focuses on healthcare technology investments – backing the secular growth of software for business-critical functions across both the provider, payor and life science sectors. David joined Hg as part of the founding Mercury team in 2012 before becoming partner in 2017.
Funds Raised
In June 2023 Hg was ranked in the top 10 in the Private Equity International PEI300, a global list which measures the fundraising totals of private equity’s biggest firms over the past five years. In the same ranking Hg proved to be the second largest European-headquartered firm. This list totaled Hg’s fundraising in the last 5 years at over $50bn. Over the past 12 months, Hg has raised over €20 billion additional capital for new investments and today the firm has over $65 billion in total funds under management.
Key Investments
Hg has led over 200 investments in the software and services sector and is currently invested in over 50 businesses, with its large-cap strategy, Saturn, now invested in the top three biggest software buyouts in Europe (Access Group, IFS and Visma).
Access Group: Invested in 2018
Sector: Software
The Access Group is a leading Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) business, providing a range of horizontal and industry-specific software solutions to SME and mid-market customers in Australia, Ireland and the UK.
IFS: Invested in 2022
Sector: Software
IFS is a leading provider across multiple sectors including Service Management, Enterprise Asset Management (EAM) and Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) for five core asset-intensive verticals.
Visma: Invested in 2006
Sector: Software
Visma is a leading provider of mission-critical business software for a more efficient and resilient society. By simplifying and automating the work of companies and organizations of all sizes, Visma aims to improve people’s everyday lives.
Sovos: Invested in 2016
Sector: Software
Sovos is a leading global provider of tax compliance software solutions that helps customers manage an increasingly complex end‑to‑end tax determination and regulatory reporting process.
Benevity: Invested in 2020
Sector: Software
Benevity’s all-in-one, global platform enables purpose-driven brands to engage these stakeholders in supporting the causes and issues they care about through a database of nearly 2 million vetted non-profit organizations worldwide.
Litera: Invested in 2019
Sector: Software
Litera is a leading provider of legal workflow and workspace technology worldwide. Litera’s software empowers users across the legal industry to generate, review and distribute high-quality content quickly and securely, from any device.
Capital Responsibility
Enduring, sustainable, resilient. Core to Hg’s strategy over the last 20+ years is to build a business that lasts for future decades, built on building great long-term technology companies.
This is important to Hg as it has a company purpose with an equally long-term horizon—bearing the trust “to improve the future of millions of investors by building sustainable businesses for tomorrow”—working for the millions of individual investors whose pension, savings or endowment capital it invests. That purpose is shared with every single person that joins the firm through direct communication from the guardians of that capital working for the various retirement plans, endowments and similar bodies across the world that support it.
The firm can only continue to deliver this purpose in a sustained way if it is growing and investing responsibly.
Increasingly, however, this long-term view means also looking out beyond its own portfolio, across areas where it thinks it can have most meaningful effect. Whether it is environmental issues such as targeting emissions through science-based targets, or diversity and inclusion programs across the firm and portfolio or addressing social opportunity and skills shortages through The Hg Foundation—these are wider issues beyond managing pension fund money well, but where Hg hopes that it can genuinely have some impact to ensure a sustainable future for the firm’s ecosystem and society.
CEO Reviews
Merete Hverven, CEO at Visma
“For almost 15 years now, Visma has benefited from a supportive and highly knowledgeable private equity investor base, led by Hg. This guidance and know-how in the software sector has enabled us to consistently and significantly expand both our product offering and geographic footprint. This includes a significant investment in SaaS which has strengthened our recurring revenue model…”
Elona Mortimer-Zhika, CEO of IRIS
“As well as being a tremendous support to the business for well over 15 years, Hg has also been a trusted adviser and guide for me personally, from joining the business as a first-time CFO, to my appointment as CEO. This comes from their enormous experience in our universe, but also from the positive way in which they do business.”
Jonas Dhaenens, Founder & President of team.blue
“I really wanted to partner with a fund that could actually accelerate my business. I wasn’t looking for just capital, I was really looking for capital with additional value….The good thing about Hg is that they’re only focused on one specific sector and this is what I really like.”
Oliver Schmitz, LucaNet
“Hg is a well-regarded partner for many software leaders in Germany and has over 20 years proven experience in scaling and transforming B2B software providers.”
