OSLO, NORWAY – On 28 December 2021, Promon AS (“Promon” or the “Company”), a leading provider of application shielding software, announced that it will partner with a GRO Capital-led consortium (the “GRO consortium” or “GRO”) to accelerate global growth and cement the Company’s industry leadership position.
Leveraging Promon’s best-in-class app shielding technology, the GRO consortium (comprised of GRO Capital and Kirk Kapital) becomes a majority investor in the Company to enhance sales and marketing efforts, fuel continued product innovation, as well as expand across industry verticals on a global scale.
Built on the foundation of continuous product innovation, the Company’s platform, SHIELD™, offers unparalleled next-gen application protection and shielding technology by extending security beyond the downloaded application and proactively detecting and blocking potential security threats at rest and at runtime, ultimately safeguarding applications used on +300 million devices from malware attacks and application tampering.
Since 2006, Promon has been a pioneer within the application shielding software eco-system and has acquired +250 customers and +25 strategic partners globally, with offices in Norway, Germany, UK, US, Hong Kong, and India. Promon’s software is validated by a broad portfolio of blue-chip customers across a multitude of industry verticals. The Company has undergone rapid growth since inception and GRO partners with Promon at an important inflection point in the Company’s growth journey, as the demand for application security solutions is expected to accelerate significantly in response to customers safeguarding against ever increasing malware attacks on an application level.
Alongside GRO, Trifork, an international provider of NextGen IT-services and solutions that strives to be at the forefront of technological innovation, will invest in Promon and enter a mutually beneficial strategic partnership leveraging Promon’s industry thought leadership position around app shielding.
Gustaf Sahlman, CEO of Promon, said: “We are very excited about partnering with GRO Capital and Kirk Kapital to invest in our scaling journey and capitalize on our highly differentiated technology, with a focus to ensure continued delivery of state-of-the-art app shielding to millions of end users. We are proud of our historical track record as one of the pioneers and thought leaders within the app shielding domain, which is why it has been important for us to partner with an investor who can demonstrate extensive knowledge and experience around operating and scaling software businesses.”
Maxwell Veyhe, Partner at GRO Capital, said: “The management team has created a highly scalable, next-gen security software platform for the application universe, which today more than ever is highly vulnerable to security threats. At GRO Capital, we are very impressed by the technology depth and differentiation that the Promon team has built over the past two decades. We are very confident that GRO Capital is the ideal partner for Promon and we look forward to back the management team in expanding the business to become a global category winner in the app shielding market.”
Kim Gulstad, CEO of Kirk Kapital, said: “Our investment in Promon, together with GRO Capital, is a testimony of Kirk Kapital’s strategy of teaming up with strong and competent partners, who we believe can deliver sustainable value creation. We consider Promon a first-class company with significant global growth potential, and we are excited to support GRO Capital and Promon on this journey.”
Jørn Larsen, CEO of Trifork Group, said: “We are very pleased to invest in Promon together with GRO Capital and Kirk Kapital. Trifork is already active in the fast-growing cyber protection market and impressed by Promon’s unique app shielding technology. Promon is a perfect partner, and we are looking forward to working with the team to continue its growth journey globally.”
Closing of the Transaction is anticipated to take place in the end of January 2022.
About Promon
Based in Oslo, Norway, Promon has been a pioneer within application security and has delivered world-leading security software to many of the largest banks around the globe. Today, Promon works across a broad range of industries with various global Tier 1 clients, counting customers in industries such as finance, health, public sector, and more. Promon’s technology is research-based and originates from the internationally recognized research environments at SINTEF and the University of Oslo. Promon’s patented deep protection technology Promon SHIELD™ is protecting apps used by hundreds of millions of users.
For further information about Promon please visit: www.promon.co and www.linkedin.com/company/promon-as
About GRO Capital
GRO Capital is a leading North European private equity fund with an exclusive focus on mature B2B software and tech enabled companies with strong growth prospects. GRO Capital serves as active owners developing portfolio companies with a view to create long-term value. The partners behind GRO Capital have been investors in more than 25 technology and software related companies, and GRO Capital has approximately EUR 430m in AUM.
For further information about GRO Capital please visit: www.grocapital.dk and www.linkedin.com/company/gro-capital
About Kirk Kapital
Kirk Kapital is a family-owned investment company focusing on long-term value creation. Kirk Kapital businesses areas include Strategic Investments, Financial Investments, and Family Office Services. Kirk Kapital’s activities within Strategic Investments are focused around acquiring minority positions in Nordic medium and larger sized companies, which have market leading positions in long-term growth industries. Kirk Kapital has 14 active strategic investments and manages approximately EUR 1.5bn in AUM.
For further information about Kirk Kapital please visit www.kirkkapital.dk and www.linkedin.com/company/kirkkapital
About Trifork
Trifork is a global NextGen IT company that develops innovative software solutions in collaboration with its customers. The company has more than 1,000 employees, across 57 business units, with offices in 11 countries in Europe and the USA, and works in six business areas: Digital Health, FinTech, Smart Building, Cloud Operations, Cyber Protection and Smart Enterprise. Trifork’s research and development takes place in Trifork Labs, where Trifork continuously co-invests and develops technology start-up companies. Trifork is behind the brand, GOTO, which runs a global tech community with over 255,000 subscribers and more than 27 million views on YouTube.
For further information about Trifork please visit: www.trifork.com and www.linkedin.com/company/trifork
Promon
Gustaf Sahlman, CEO
gustaf.sahlman@promon.no
GRO Capital
Maxwell Veyhe, Partner
mv@grocapital.dk
Lars Lunde, Partner
ll@grocapital.dk
