Aker ASA: Cognite Announces USD 150 Million Investment by TCV

OSLO, Norway, May 19, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Aker ASA ("Aker") today announced that Cognite has raised USD 150 million in a Series B investment by TCV, a leading technology-focused growth equity firm. The new funding round will allow Cognite to accelerate growth initiatives, including product development and international expansion. The investment round values Cognite at USD 1.6 billion, marking one of the largest private founding rounds for a Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) company in Europe.

The Series B investment round comes as Cognite continues to experience significant customer growth and is scaling globally. Cognite's flagship product, the software platform Cognite Data Fusion (CDF), helps industries with digital transformation by liberating, safeguarding, and translating data from sensors, systems, and other sources into one common language. The data contextualized by CDF empowers companies to drive industrial applications that increase safety, sustainability, efficiency, and profitability. Today, Cognite is servicing some of the world's largest industrial companies.

"Cognite has had a remarkable growth journey since its founding in 2017, attracting top talent from across the globe and working feverishly to develop, deploy and verify the impact from its industrial software technology. As the global growth continues across industry verticals, there is significant interest from companies to partner with Cognite. We are very pleased to welcome TCV, a top-tier growth equity firm, on board, especially given their strong track record from building and scaling enterprise software companies globally," said Øyvind Eriksen, President and CEO of Aker. "The investment is a testament to the Cognite growth journey so far and to its future potential. Moreover, it highlights the significant value creation taking place in Aker's industrial software portfolio."

TCV complements Aker and Accel and will strengthen the ongoing work to accelerate Cognite's growth initiatives, including expanding its go-to-market strategy and product development. TCV has decades of experience supporting high-growth technology companies, such as Netflix, OSIsoft, Splunk, Airbnb and Spotify. TCV helps companies recruit world-class talent to scale teams, introduces high-value customers and partners, uses data and analytics to hone go-to-market strategies, and prepare for IPOs. As part of the partnership agreement, Jake Reynolds, General Partner at TCV, will join Cognite's Board of Directors.

"Cognite is building the future by redefining modern industrial data management," said Jake Reynolds. "Cognite is emerging as a leader of the pack through their proven industrial-strength SaaS solutions as the world turns to digitalization to truly transform, and we look forward to partnering with them to revolutionize the industry as they grow and scale."

The USD 150 million Series B investment raises Cognite's valuation to USD 1.6 billion, giving TCV 9.4 percent of the shares in the company. Aker will have a 50.5 percent shareholding in Cognite following closing of the transaction with TCV, as well as the previous equity conversion of the convertible loan to Cognite and Series A investment by Accel. The TCV transaction is expected to close in early June 2021, subject to customary closing conditions.

"Cognite was developed to digitalize some of the most complex industries in the world and is enabling companies to deploy industrial software to improve cost efficiency, environmental compliance, and data-driven decision-making," said Eriksen. "Industrial software is also becoming necessary to succeed in the ongoing energy transition, which creates new opportunities for growth. With strong support from TCV, Accel and Aker, Cognite will continue to make legacy industries more sustainable and sustainable industries more profitable."

ABOUT TCV

Founded in 1995, TCV was established with a clear vision: to capture opportunities in the technology market through a specialized and consistent focus on investing in high-growth companies. Since inception, the firm has built a track record of successfully backing public and private businesses that have developed into dominant industry players across internet, software, FinTech, and enterprise IT. TCV has invested over $14 billion to date and has helped guide CEOs through more than 125 IPOs and strategic acquisitions. TCV has invested in cutting edge technology companies including OSIsoft, Airbnb, Brex, ByteDance, Facebook, Hotmart, Netflix, Peloton, Spotify, Zillow, Clio, Redis Labs, Klarna, Mollie, Nubank, Payoneer, Revolut, Toast, Wealthsimple and WorldRemit. TCV has successfully executed over 350 investments of varying structures, including mid-stage, late stage and public company investments, and has offices in Menlo Park, New York, and London. For more information about TCV, including a complete list of TCV investments, visit https://www.tcv.com/.

ABOUT COGNITE:

Cognite is a global industrial software-as-a-service (SaaS) company supporting the full-scale digital data driven transformation of asset intensive industries around the world. Our core product, Cognite Data Fusion (CDF), is an industrial data operations and contextualization platform, putting raw data into real-world industrial context, enabling rapid application & solution creation at scale. CDF powers companies with contextualized OT/IT/ET data to develop solutions that increase safety, sustainability, efficiency and drive revenue. Visit us at www.cognite.com and follow us on Twitter @CogniteData or at LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/cognitedata

CONTACT:

For more information, please contact:

Media:
Atle Kigen, Head of Media Relations and Public Affairs, Aker ASA
Tel: +47 90784878
Email: atle.kigen@akerasa.com

Investors:
Christina Chappell Glenn, Head of Corporate Communications and Investor Relations, Aker ASA
Tel: +47 90532774
Email: christina.glenn@akerasa.com 

This information is considered to be inside information pursuant to the EU Market Abuse Regulation and is subject to the disclosure requirements pursuant to Section 5-12 the Norwegian Securities Trading Act.

This stock exchange announcement was published by Christina Chappell Glenn, Head of Corporate Communications and Investor Relations at Aker ASA, on May 19, 2021 at 14:45 CEST.

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