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Continest successfully raised EUR 6.5M VC funding round

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Our Client Continest Technologies, developing and manufacturing innovative, foldable modular containers has received a total of HUF 2.4 billion (~ 6.5M EUR) in a syndicated investment round with the participation of DBH, Focus Ventures and Hiventures to support its growth ambitions.

The current investment round is aimed to further boost Continest’s international business development and expansion, as well as to support the establishment of a new manufacturing unit to increase production capabilities.

Continest debuted on the internationally recognized Sziget Festival in Budapest, Hungary in 2017 with their mobile infrastructure solutions and 2 years later, in 2019, the entire service facility of ski world championship in Sweden was built by their containers. Beyond the purpose of office and event utilization, they are also developing tailor-made solutions for defence and medical industries (mobile COVID-test laboratories). Due to its foldable nature, the sustainable Continest innovation makes the process of logistics 80% more cost-efficient.

To accelerate industry-specific product developments, enter new European markets and support growth ambitions, Continest successfully raised 4M EUR venture capital in 2019 from DBH. Continest Technologies, founded in 2019, achieved a turnover of more than HUF 820M already in 2020, which dynamically increased to HUF 1.6 bln in 2021. 

“The global market developments of recent years and the increasing demand for sustainable development have led to global demand for temporary infrastructure solutions. That is why we see the next few years as being the decisive years for foldable modular container technology. Together with our new and existing capital investors, we have the opportunity to scale up and enter new markets with a very stable financing base, further contributing to domestic exports. The construction of our number two plant, which will be inaugurated in September this year, will open up the opportunity to produce in even larger volumes and to further develop our manufacturing technology“ said Dániel Tegzes, strategic director of Continest Technologies.

In 2021, the company inaugurated its first container factory in Székesfehérvár, Hungary, which is currently capable of producing 1,000 foldable containers per year and provides jobs for 53 employees. In the future, the Continest factory will use Industry 4.0 solutions, and the company’s state-of-the-art sheet metal plant and welding hall will be supported by robot technology for efficient production. The company is also planning a significant expansion of its workforce, with nearly 50 new jobs to be created by 2022. The second plant will also offer the possibility of in-house surface treatment of containers, and the annual production of containers will reach 3,000 units.

The company is currently working on developments such as the fully equipped kitchen container, cargo containers, which are also suitable for freight transport. Another ongoing project is the vertical farm container, which is being developed in partnership with Green Drops Farm and Baptist Relief Services to create a hydroponics-based crop production system without the need for topsoil.

In addition, Continest is continuously developing its containers for medical and defence use. In May 2022, the Hungarian Defence Export Agency signed the first cooperation agreement with the company, under which the military technology agency will assist Continest in international marketing and distribution.

“It was a long journey with full of challenges, but there was no doubt about the success with such a great team!” – said the transaction advisory team leader of Continest’s, Lénárd Horgos, partner of Absolvo. “By nature, venture capital is not primarily focused on investing into hardware and manufacturing companies, but Continest is a particularly good case study on how to grow a manufacturing company with rock-solid commitment to a 1+ bn business in a few years’ time and make it an attractive target for venture capital to invest. The Continest success story reflects the exceptional combination of manifested, intensively growing global market potential, a truly innovative and well-customizable technology and a committed, ambitious and visionary management team which is already proven to move its company forward. It was a great honour for us that – after the first successful investment round in 2019 – our team was trusted again to support Continest in preparing, negotiating and closing its current investment round. We are delighted to take part in achieving the current milestone but Continest’s growth journey is not yet over; moreover, I feel confident that a new Hungarian success story is just being born!” – added Lénárd Horgos.

 

Source: official press release

Innonic’s Shoprenter successfully sold its majority stake to the Polish e-commerce giant IAI

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Our Client Shoprenter, a member of the Innonic Group, a major SaaS-based e-commerce platform provider in Hungary agreed to sell majority stake to an international strategic investor to further exploit its growth potential in the CEE region and Europe.

In July 2021, Shoprenter closed a successful M&A transaction with the market leader Polish e-commerce SaaS provider company IAI (IdoSell), which acquired a majority stake (51%) in the Hungarian company.

IAI – backed by the leading digital PE fund in Poland and Central Europe MCI Capital – reported GMV (gross merchandise value) of EUR 2.6bn EUR in the fiscal year ending April 2021, and it provides e-commerce systems for 6000+ online stores and 1500+ online accommodation booking facilities.

The acquisition of its peer Shoprenter is one of the very first important milestones in IAI’s European and international expansion and becoming a global player.

Shoprenter was advised by Absolvo Consulting in the transaction process with IAI.

Conversific successfully closed EUR 2M late seed VC funding round

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Our Client, Conversific, a Hungarian ecommerce analytics tool developer, has just closed a late seed round of EUR 2M with Hungarian financial investors, Bonitas and Hiventures, after a successful seed funding round of EUR 0.5M in 2018 from Hiventures and the founder group Innonic. In the last transaction Conversific was advised by Absolvo Consulting.

The company offers ecommerce reports and benchmarks, data insights, as well as product and consumer analysis. It has 20k users from 180 countries, more than 90% of the sales is generated internationally, out of which 60% in the US, UK, Canada and Australia.

The recently raised capital will be used for an international market research, subsequent innovation and further product development as well as sales & marketing investments to support international expansion, the co-founder and CEO Norbert Bodog explained.

The management is regularly approached by investors with buy-out intentions; however, the owners would only consider a full exit once the company becomes more sizeable, Bodog pointed out.

Conversific has been generating revenues since its first year of operation, and the annual turnover has increased tenfold since the seed funding. According to their financial plan, Conversific will reach the EUR 3M ARR (annual recurring revenue) point by end 2023, he added.

Conversific ranks first among the analytics tool on Shopify, which position the company aims to protect with its variety of features, as well as its freemium and monthly subscription-based SaaS pricing model.

Conversific’s main target group are micro and small sized companies, with up to 10-50 employees or around EUR 1M to 10M annual turnover, Bodog said.

The COVID-19 pandemics has not affected the company in a negative way, as operations easily moved to a remote working environment, he said, adding that on the other hand, global ecommerce growth has accelerated due to the lockdowns, that has a significantly positive impact on Conversific too. 

Congratulations to the Conversific team, thank you for the effective co-operation and we are happy and proud of being part of your success story! We wish all the best and good luck in achieving your ambitious goals!

A new investment brings Prefixbox’s e-commerce search to Poland

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Our Client Prefixbox, an AI powered e-commerce search provider, gets a seed investment from Euroventures to bring their e-commerce search to Poland, too.

Prefixbox has just received 500k EUR investment from Euroventures, a notable CEE investment firm, as the first part of a larger capital raising project. The investment will be used for deep product development along with supporting the international expansion of the Hungarian startup throughout the CEE region, with Poland as the first stop.

This investment gives a lot of confidence to the company to further improve their product search for webshops. Their solutions can increase the revenue generated by search users with as much as 47% for webstores, as well as provide a better-quality customer experience. Product search plays a more and more important role for e-commerce managers, along with the rapid growth of the industry and Poland is not an exception to that.

“This investment is a huge milestone in Prefixbox’s history. It gives us a boost to help us accelerate our growth, developing the team, and international expansion starting from Poland. We’ve had great traction with our existing Polish customers and are excited to open a new office to better support them and the market. Through developing our product and taking it to the world, we are striving to become the world’s best e-commerce search provider.”- said Istvan Simon, the founder and CEO of Prefixbox.

With this investment Prefixbox is planning to open a new office in the heart of Warsaw and build up a local sales and customer success team to be able to serve Polish customers’ needs and provide them with the best e-commerce search engines possible.

With existing customers from over 9 countries, Prefixbox’s clients in Hungary include – among others – Extreme Digital (edigital.hu), Rossmann (shop.rossmann.hu) and Praktiker (praktiker.hu), in Poland webstores such as Tania Ksiazka.pl, Militaria.pl or Cyfrowe.pl.

The startup was also recognized by Gartner in the 2019 “Market Guide for Digital Commerce Search”.

Prefixbox has been advised by the growth financing team of Absolvo in the transaction process.

Source: Prefixbox’s official press release