Ardian takes minority stake in Clever Age

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Press release

Ardian takes minority stake in Clever Age

  • 21 January 2015

  • Growth

  • France, Paris

6 minutes de lecture

Ardian, the premium private investment company, today announces the acquisition of a minority stake in Clever Age, the digital and mobile consultancy and design specialist. With this €2.5 million fundraising, Clever Age aims to accelerate its growth and international development.

Founded in 2001 by Frédéric Bon, Clever Age helps its clients identify and set up their digital strategy. The company has almost 150 web professionals working within three tightly linked departments:

- Clever Garden: an interactive communication agency, composed of user experience designers, art directors and front-end developers;

- Clever Forge: focused on consulting and the production of digital projects, such as institutional websites, e-commerce websites, mobile apps, intranets and corporate social networks;

- Clever Presence: focused on post-online services such as hosting, front-end performance, SEO, e-reputation and the optimization of web and mobile systems.

Clever Age has offices in four locations in France (Paris, Lyon, Bordeaux and Nantes), a Clever Institut training center and a presence in Switzerland and Hong Kong. Clients include SMEs and large organizations that are already well-advanced in their digital development such as Aramis Auto, Longchamp, Cdiscount, Voyages SNCF and April Assurances. Clever Age is now well-recognized as a key partner for all kinds of digital projects.

Frédéric Bon, President of Clever Age said: “We needed an experienced partner to increase our international presence and support our clients. We have known Ardian’s teams for several years and they are a natural partner for us. Their international networks will go to a long way to help us succeed in our strategic development.”

Laurent Foata, Head of Ardian Growth, added: “We identified Clever Age as a key player in the field of digital consulting and we were convinced by the technical expertise of the teams and their President. We are delighted to support the company in its international development.”

ABOUT CLEVER AGE

We are 100% digital, and it’s in our genes. Our experts in interactive communication, technical architecture and production infrastructure can build reliable answers over the whole production chain. Our clients have at their disposal about a hundred of Web professionals, serving their strategic projects, led by experimented project directors evolving upon a well-tried methodology.
Since the company was created in 2001, we exclusively take part in web and mobile projects. The company’s development was always performed following our founding values:
- independence: we advise our clients without any pressure from any external entity
- tech watch: we need to be at the state of the art, to make ourselves professional convictions, to keep our clients off wrong turns, and seize opportunities to do good.
- durability: when we work with a client, we don’t try to make the most impressive use case! We help you set up the most suitable solutions which will keep being efficient through time.

clever-age.com

ABOUT ARDIAN

Ardian, founded in 1996 and led by Dominique Senequier, is a premium independent private investment company with assets of US$50bn managed or advised in Europe, North America and Asia. The company, which is majority-owned by its employees, keeps entrepreneurship at its heart and delivers investment performance to its global investors while fuelling growth in economies across the world. Ardian’s investment process embodies three values: excellence, loyalty and entrepreneurship.

Ardian maintains a truly global network, with more than 340 employees working through ten offices in Paris, London, New York, Beijing, Frankfurt, Jersey, Luxembourg, Milan, Singapore and Zurich. The company offers its 346 investors a diversified choice of funds covering the full range of asset classes, including Fund of Funds (primary, early secondary and secondary), Direct Funds including Infrastructure, Expansion, Mid Cap Buyout, Ardian Growth, Co-Investment and Private Debt.

ardian.com

Participants Involved

  • Ardian

    • Ardian : Laurent Foata, Geoffroy de La Grandière
    • Legal Advisor: De Gaulle Fleurance & Associés (Nicolas Chazarain)

  • Celever Age

    • Clever Age: Frédéric Bon

Press contact

Headland Consultancy

Tom James

tjames@headlandconsultancy.co.uk

+44 207 3675 240

Clever Age

Patricia Bon

pbon@clever-age.com

+33 1 53 34 66 10