News & Insights

Accel-KKR Wins International Deal of the Year for Seequent Exit

April 1, 2022Buyouts Magazine has named Accel-KKR’s exit of New Zealand-based Seequent the 2021 International Deal of the Year in its annual awards program announced today.

Buyouts recognizes the work of six private equity firms for their highly successful deals made in 2021, and winning criteria include metrics such as multiples of invested capital, internal rates of return, EBITDA, employee retention and expansion, portfolio company growth. The editors of Buyouts also review investment rationale, methods of growth and how exits were made. Full list of winners are listed here.

Headquartered in Christchurch with global offices in over 25 countries, Seequent provides powerful geoscience analysis, modelling and collaborative technologies for understanding geoscience and engineering design solutions.

Through a thesis-driven approach, Accel-KKR identified Seequent in 2014,  resulting in a majority investment in 2018, and ultimately to the successful sale of the company to Bentley Systems (NASDAQ: BSY) in 2021 for ~$1.05 billion. During the firm’s three-year hold, Seequent grew revenue more than 3x and expanded EBITDA by 15x.

Together with Accel-KKR, the company embarked on its first of many subsequent cross-border acquisitions that effectively expanded the total addressable market (TAM), grew its customer footprint to over 100 countries and its workforce to 16 global offices. Seequent transformed from a niche player serving the mining and mineral market into a global leader in engineering and geospatial software, extending its customer base into the environmental, civil engineering and energy end markets.

Seequent is a study in how Accel-KKR partners with companies to achieve their full potential. Accel-KKR has previously won ‘Deal of the Year‘ for its sale of Saber Corporation.