Nordic Alpha Partners sells eMobility company Spirii in large scale transaction

COPENHAGEN, February 27 2024 – Danish Spirii, which, under Nordic Alpha Partners’ three-year ownership, has grown by +2000% and developed from a Danish player to the leading European software platform for charging electric cars, has been sold to French payment and mobility giant, Edenred.

Only nine months after Nordic Alpha Partners’ (NAP) sale of the German wireless charging pioneer, Wiferion, to Tesla, the green growth fund delivers its second major exit with the sale of Spirii. Again, the transaction shows how NAP’s operational investment approach and Value Creation Model can spot leading companies in the green transition early on, and in a capital-efficient way develop them into international, cash-flow positive market leaders and achieve successful exits at strategic multiples.

Early spotting of tomorrow’s winners in the green transition 

It was an unusual maneuver for a private equity fund, when NAP, only a year and a half after the establishment of Spirii, invested in the company. But it was a result of the fund’s ability to spot young companies with high potential and visionary founders – actively supporting their development.

“Electrification and e-mobility are core investment areas for NAP, so when we noticed that Torben and Tore had broken away from EON to start Spirii, we immediately initiated dialogue and started following the company,” says Senior Partners in NAP, Rasmus Lund.

From Danish player to international market leader  

In three years with NAP as the lead investor, Spirii expanded to 19 countries, delivered consistent double-digit growth figures month on month, winning more than 60% of all public tenders in the Danish part of the business.

The significant progress led to Spirii becoming the 2nd largest software platform in Denmark, according to the latest market figures from the Danish Transport Agency, only behind the sector peer Clever.

Even more impressive is it that in the last two years, Spirii has won the largest customers within electrification and eMobility globally, including the world’s largest logistics companies and retail giants, as well as several of the world’s largest energy and real estate companies. Customers who by themselves are larger than the entire Danish market.

“The company decided early on not to announce our many new large customers, as we experienced that the other players chimed them down when we made the announcements,” says Senior Partner in NAP, Laurits Bach Sørensen.

“But to put the size in context, in the last nine months alone, Spirii has installed more than 1000 chargers every month, and its international customers ordered the equivalent of over 4000 superchargers, which is more than 200% of the total Danish market combined”, says Senior Partner in NAP, Laurits Bach Sørensen.

NAP’s value creation model led to a pivoting of the business 

With the use of NAP’s model apparatus and a close partnership with Spirii’s management, it became possible creating a highly capital efficient expansive strategy.

“The early strategy process where the founders’ vision for eMobility transformation was combined with NAP’s BCSA-model (Better, Cheaper, Simpler, Available) made it clear that an independent software platform had to be the primary investment focus, if the company was to achieve a global leadership position”, says Laurits Bach Sørensen.

“This realization led us to split the company into two independent businesses when we invested. Today, just 11 quarters later, both the Nordic turnkey business and the international software platform businesses are on a track to become category leaders, and we could actually have sold them as separate businesses in the exit process”, says Laurits Bach Sørensen.

Perfect buyer to consolidate European leadership in eMobility

That both NAP and Spirii are happy with the transaction is not least because the company remains on European hands. With Edenred’s global position, massive customer base and strong balance sheet, the Spirii business and platform will get an injection that will substantially accelerate the founder’s and management’s mission to become the global dominating e-mobility platform.

Spirii continues the journey in the same spirit

With the sale to Edenred, which is among the 40 largest companies on the French stock exchange, Spirii becomes part of a company with 12,000 employees, a customer base of 60 million end users, almost 1 million client companies, and a business volume of EUR 41 billion. The addition of Spirii, where the founders will continue as CEO and CIO, respectively, will strengthen Edenred’s targeted efforts within eMobility and help new and existing customers transition toward electrification.

Thus, Spirii is yet another example of a Danish technology innovation that, with the right model apparatus and a visionary mindset, has grown rapidly and taken a strong leadership position internationally within the green transition. “We are happy and proud to have already reached this point on our journey,” says Spirii’s CEO, Tore Harritshøj, and comments on the collaboration with NAP: “We chose NAP as an investor because of their explicit value creation model, which they started to deploy already pre-investment, enabling us to rapidly expand but in a capital efficiently way, that made us comfortable that they would be the final lead investor. With Edenred as owner, we will be able to continue the development of the Spirii platform and accelerate our global expansion.“

About Spirii

Founded in 2019 in Copenhagen, Spirii boasts offices in Copenhagen, Barcelona, Hamburg, Nice, and London, with a dedicated team of 110 dedicated professionals driving the future of electric mobility. With an extensive partner charge point network spanning two continents and more than 350,000 charge points through roaming agreements, Spirii serves a diverse clientele across various sectors, including logistics, fleet, real estate, retail, and energy & utility companies.

Spirii offers turn-key charging solutions, a comprehensive EV charging management platform, and an intuitive end-user charging and roaming app. Read more on: www.spirii.com 

About Edenred

Edenred is a leading digital platform for services and payments and the everyday companion for people at work, connecting more than 60 million users and more than 2 million partner merchants in 45 countries via close to 1 million corporate clients.

Edenred offers specific-purpose payment solutions for food (such as meal benefits), engagement (such as gift cards and dedicated platforms), mobility (such as multi-energy solutions, including EV charging, maintenance, toll, parking, and commuter solutions), and corporate payments (such as virtual cards).

In 2023, the Group managed EUR 41 billion in business volume, primarily via mobile applications, online platforms, and cards.

About Nordic Alpha Partners

Nordic Alpha Partners is a Nordic and Germany-based growth equity fund established in 2017 with offices in Copenhagen and Munich. It invests in sustainable hard tech companies with the potential to pioneer and accelerate the global green transformation.

The fund has raised DKK 5 billion for green investments, saving the environment from more than 1 million tonnes of CO2 and creating over 500 green jobs over the past three years.

NAP’s investment approach is based on a highly active and operationally supporting ownership model, which in combination with a methodic value creation approach, enables visionary founders to scale from local players to global market leaders.

More info:www.napartners.dk

Nordic Alpha Partners’ team behind the Spirii investment:

 – Investment Lead: Senior Partner, Rasmus Lund

 – Value Creation Lead: Senior Partner, Laurits Bach Sørensen

Contact:

Senior Partner, Laurits Bach Sørensen                                              CMO, Martin Plambek
Mobil: +45 25 26 10 30                                                                         Mobil: +45 52 11 11 25