28. February 2023
Press release: Company succession completed | entitys secures growth capital from Würzburg-based B2B software fund StellaVent Capital
A journey that began for Simon Manz two years ago reached its temporary high point with the conclusion of a growth financing deal. The company was founded back in 2005 as IfCC GmbH under the leadership of Prof. Dr. Ulrich Manz, before he now passed the baton on to his son Simon Manz.
In the midst of the Corona pandemic, Simon Manz set new impulses and did not hesitate to seize market opportunities, thus initiating the transformation of the company from a consulting and service provider with many years of industry experience in data and product information management to an agile, innovative software company. This resulted in far-reaching changes in the day-to-day business: due to new required competencies, there were significant personnel changes, due to the new market approach, a new homepage and also a new company name resulted.
The next chapter in the company’s history has now been opened: The Würzburg-based enterprise software fund StellaVent Capital is providing growth financing for entitys. The company will use the funds to accelerate its growth strategy and further develop its cloud-based software solution from the product and material master data area.
“We are pleased to invest in entitys GmbH, which has an innovative cloud solution and strong growth potential,” said Michael Sauer, partner and managing director of the B2B Software Fund. “We were convinced by the modern, technologically leading and functionally mature Product Information Cloud. We were impressed by the entrepreneurial courage, vision and consistency in implementation of Simon Manz and his team. Our investment is an expression of our conviction that together with entitys we can create a European market leader for product information management.”
“I am thrilled that StellaVent has invested in us and is supporting us in achieving our growth goals,” said Simon Manz, CEO of entitys GmbH. “With the fund’s support, we will be able to professionalize our product development, sales and marketing efforts to provide more targeted support to our customers and take our business to the next level.”
StellaVent Capital leads a private equity fund to turn emerging, innovative B2B software companies into market leaders. With deep market understanding, B2B software companies are developed to achieve sustainable growth. In addition to capital, entrepreneurs gain access to a unique investor network that understands the entrepreneurial journey and what it takes to win. In this way, value is created together.
Entitys is a full-service provider in the master data management space. The focus is on the cloud solution entitys.io with the help of which manufacturers as well as retailers can collect, process and distribute their product and material master data. The aim is to provide customers with a “Product Data Operating System” that not only combines all the necessary functionalities of a product information management, or PIM, system in an intuitive interface, but also significantly accelerates the processing of master data through the use of machine learning (ML) assistants.
Assistants already available include the Classification Assistant, which enables users to classify their master data according to ECLASS within a very short time, and the innovative File Importer, which matches the contents of master data to be imported with the user-specific data model, thus minimizing the effort of data onboarding.
This growth financing will enable entitys to strengthen product development, implement its ambitious product roadmap and enter into its first OEM partnerships. For 2023, the further developments are already decided. In addition to a public API gateway, there will be a workflow module and a connection to publishing hubs and store systems from various providers.