A take-private transaction, followed by a transformative M&A program and clear market strategy propelled a mid-sized niche player into a global Top 3 player in the spend management category with over 1,000 employees. Today, JAGGAER is recognized as a ‘Leader’ in the Gartner Magic Quadrant.
JAGGAER’s revenues nearly tripled during the three-year hold, and the company was cited as a market leader by key analyst groups. The company was named a “Leader” in Gartner Inc’s “Magic Quadrant for Procure-to-Pay Suites” in 2018, 2019, 2020 and 2021. In Aug 2019, JAGGAER was sold to UK-based private equity firm Cinven. The announcement was listed amongst 2019’s “top announced PE deals by European firms” by Refinitiv.
“It’s not everyday that one gets to be part of the team that built a global leader. Accel-KKR is exactly the team that can make it happen, and I for one am grateful to be part of the journey.”
JAGGAER, formerly known as SciQuest, was founded in 1995 as a B2B eCommerce exchange serving the higher education and lab sciences industries. During its early years, SciQuest transitioned from an exchange platform to an eProcurement platform. Through AKKR’s investment in iTradeNetwork, another procurement platform for the food industry, AKKR and SciQuest’s management and board have maintained a relationship.
SciQuest was a publicly listed company at two different stages of its life. During its second tour on the public markets, both SciQuest and AKKR recognized an opportunity to take the company private and enable its management team to have a long term orientation and operating runway. In June 2016, AKKR completed the take-private acquisition of SciQuest.
The company saw an opportunity to expand into more verticals. SciQuest was rebranded as JAGGAER to reflect a broader vision of its capabilities and market opportunities beyond its higher education vertical. AKKR Consulting Group worked with the company to optimize its sales and marketing investments, and revamp its entire go-to-market strategy.
AKKR also supported JAGGAER with two significant follow-on acquisitions that effectively, 1) grew its product suite; 2) expanded the company’s geographic footprint; and 3) brought the company into new customer verticals.
These two transformative acquisitions effectively made JAGGAER one of the largest independent privately held spend management solution companies at the time. That was a differentiator in the fragmented procurement solutions space and turned JAGGAER into a Top 3 global player alongside major players like Ariba and Coupa.
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