London, 15 March 2021: CBPE Capital LLP (“CBPE”) is pleased to announce that it has agreed the sale of Xceptor (“Xceptor” or the “Business”) to Astorg, with completion scheduled for 1 April 2021. Terms of the transaction have not been disclosed.
The sale to Astorg represents a money multiple of 10.8x CBPE’s original investment in Xceptor and an IRR of 89%.
Xceptor is a global leader in the end-to-end, no-code process automation market. The Business combines a highly scalable, next generation technology platform with deep financial sector domain expertise, serving a global, blue-chip customer base. Xceptor operates from 5 offices globally and employs over 160 people.
CBPE invested in Xceptor in 2017 recognising the highly regarded capabilities of the Xceptor platform and the increasing focus on workflow automation within the financial services sector. Since then, CBPE has worked with the management team to significantly scale the Business and develop a genuine best-in-class, process automation software vendor.
Xceptor has increased headcount by over fourfold during CBPE’s ownership, with a particular focus on broadening the product development and sales capability while also building a truly international business with operations in Europe, North America and Asia. This investment has helped the Business sustain revenue growth of over 35% per annum while developing an ever-broadening range of use cases for existing and new clients.
Andrew Kouloumbrides, CEO of Xceptor, said:
“CBPE have been a great partner for Xceptor over the last four years. They have helped to transform the business in multiple different ways, supporting our international growth, the development of our team and product offering. We look forward to continuing to build on this success with our new partners at Astorg.”
Jason Khaksar, Partner at CBPE, said:
“It has been a real privilege to work with Andrew and the entire team at Xceptor. The past four years have seen the Business develop and grow significantly and we wish the team every success on the next stage of their growth journey. I would also like to extend our thanks to Ivan Martin for his significant contribution as Chairman of Xceptor from 2016.”
This is the third exit from CBPE Capital Fund IX following the realisations of SpaMedica and ABI in 2020. In aggregate, CBPE has generated a gross realised multiple of 6.9x invested capital across these three investments.
The exit continues CBPE’s strong track record of investing in the technology and financial services sectors. The realisation of Xceptor follows the recent new investments in Mindera (software development) and The Key (education technology).
CBPE’s investment in Xceptor was led by Jason Khaksar and Ian Moore with support from Harry Hewlett.
CBPE and the shareholders were advised by Arma Partners (corporate finance) and Travers Smith (legal).
Management were advised by Liberty Corporate Finance (equity terms) and Mishcon de Reya (legal).