Houlihan Lokey Advises Kallidus

We are pleased to announce that we have advised Kallidus Limited (Kallidus), a leading human capital management and e-learning software as a service (SaaS) provider, on its sale to Apse Capital. The transaction closed on March 13, 2019.

Kallidus is a human capital management software vendor with a market leading suite of talent management solutions. The business helps organizations ensure they have the right people in the right roles with the appropriate skill set, knowledge, and competence to drive success. The SaaS solution significantly reduces time to hire, improves employee learning and development, supports high achievers, and helps organizations instill a high performing culture.

Headquartered in Cirencester, U.K., Kallidus has grown rapidly in the period under FPE Capital's ownership. FPE invested in Kallidus in April 2015 to fund further organic growth of the core business and subsequently backed the acquisition of Advorto to take the business into the recruitment sector. Kallidus also invested heavily in its SaaS platform and successfully migrated the entire business and customer base to a full multi-tenant solution.

Kallidus has been acquired by Apse Capital, which has strong knowledge of the sector, and its partners have previously invested in Seagull, a maritime e-learning and technology platform. Apse Capital is an independent European private equity group with an investment focus on European tech-enabled B2B information and services businesses. Having worked together for over a decade, the Apse Capital team looks to back high-quality management teams in high growth sectors and help them further scale their businesses through a combination of organic and inorganic growth.

This transaction exemplifies the continued success of Houlihan Lokey's dedicated Software and Data & Analytics practice and adds to the recent successes in the segment. Within human captial management and learning, the successes include advising Alchemy on its sale to Intertek Group, Igloo on its growth equity investment by Frontier Capital, and Fieldglass on its sale to MDP. Other notable online learning and education technology deals include advising Primary Capital on the MBO of ICS Learn, Atlas Knowledge on its sale to Mintra Group, and General Atlantic on its investment in OpenClassrooms.