Ardian invests in Elée, a leading provider of software asset management solutions

Paris, January 21, 2021 - Elée is partnering with Ardian, a world-leading private investment house, to support its development and growth. 

Headquartered in Paris, Elée is one of the pioneers and the leading independent tech-enabled managed services provider of software asset management and cloud computing solutions in France. Founded in 2010 in Paris by Alain Marbach (former CIO of BNP Paribas and former Executive Committee member for Schneider Electric), Elée received initial funding from Jean-Louis Beffa (former CEO of Saint Gobain) and Denis Kibler (founder of Infra+ and angel investor of Meilleursagents.com). The company has developed an innovative tech-enabled offering that allows its customers to rapidly reduce costs, minimize their risk of non-compliance with software publishers and consistently optimize the management of their software and cloud assets. 

According to Gartner, software spending accounted for $459 billion worldwide in 2020. It is estimated that software customers are currently exposed to tens of billions of dollars of unidentified non-conformity risk. To minimize this risk and optimize companies’ IT asset management, pure players have emerged, such as Elée in France. These pure players will expand both organically, through partnerships and M&A consolidation. 

Elée has over 60 employees, and has developed its own proprietary software, Sambox.io, which has been acknowledged as one of the best solutions on the market at the ITAM Review Excellence Awards 2020. The company is the only French player that is part of market research company Gartner’s Magic Quadrant, which acknowledges the best companies in the sector worldwide. With 40% annual average revenue growth, Elée serves more than 100 clients, including the French State and over half of the CAC40 companies.

With Ardian's acquisition of a minority stake in the business, Elée has the financial resources to accelerate its development in France and abroad, and accelerate the commercialization of its proprietary software, Sambox.io. 

"Our sustained growth since the company’s incorporation is testament to our ability to respond to market dynamics. Ardian’s support is a recognition of our team’s performance, our clients’ satisfaction and will be a major driver in our future development, particularly internationally and in the new ecological challenges of software management." said Alain Marbach, CEO and founder of Elée.

Olivier Roy, Investment Manager in the Ardian Growth team, commented: "Elée's strong expertise and proprietary platform make it a key player in the software asset management market. The company has impressive growth prospects, both in France and overseas."

Geoffroy de La Grandière, Managing Director in the Ardian Growth team, added: "In the current environment, Ardian Growth is pleased to be able to support entrepreneurs with ambitious projects more than ever. We are therefore excited to support Elée and its team in its next growth chapter."