Amadeus and Wellington back global digital out-of-home media company, EnQii

• $18 million funding enables EnQii to accelerate global growth
• Digital signage and out-of-home media markets growing rapidly

London, September 30^th, 2008. Amadeus Capital Partners and Wellington Partners have invested $18 million in a Series B round financing in EnQii Holdings Ltd, a global leader in the management of digital out-of-home (DOOH) advertising and merchandising networks. Roy Merritt, Partner at Amadeus, and Wellington General Partner, Frank Boehnke, will join the board of the company. The investors will join Ithmaar Bank, Kingdom of Bahrain, EnQii’s original investor. Carolyn Prowse, Managing Director, from Ithmaar Bank will also join the board.

EnQii works in partnership with advertising networks and retailers, providing a full managed service of design, installation, technology and operation of web-enabled digital displays. The company has over 100 customers in 14 countries around the world, who typically operate substantial estates of screens ranging from large LED or digital billboards to smaller shelf-located screens in retail environments. The new financing will be used to accelerate the company’s growth.

Advertising spend on out-of-home sites is currently some $1.7 billion globally, with the digital segment, which is proven to drive sales faster than traditional advertising, growing at some 40% per annum.

EnQii CEO, Ajay Chowdhury, says: “We see fantastic growth opportunities in digital out-of-home advertising and are very happy to see this significant commitment from two of Europe’s leading VCs that will help us take full advantage of these opportunities. While we have had very strong organic growth over the last year, this level of investment and the quality of the investors gives us the additional capacity to be more agressive in both opportunity development and in serving our customers’ needs. The roll-out of digital screens at places of interest has just begun, and EnQii has the capability, from our offices in New York, Toronto, London, Hong Kong and Shanghai, to manage this.”

Roy Merritt of Amadeus adds: “EnQii’s business model is to combine its leading-edge technology platform with a real understanding of customer needs, helping its clients to maximise their revenues and building deep and long-lasting relationships. We believe that EnQii’s outstanding management team is well-placed to build on its already strong global market position, and are delighted to support them in doing that.”

Frank Boehnke from Wellington Partners stresses the market opportunity: “Digital merchandising at the point-of-sale is a highly efficient way of communicating with customers for advertisers and retailers. Therefore, the installed base of DOOH screens wills more than triple in the next three years. I am sure that EnQii will benefit hugely from such tremendous market growth.”

Carolyn Prowse from Ithmaar Bank says: “We invested in EnQii last year and are very pleased to see its growth since the investment. With Amadeus and Wellington joining us as shareholders we remain confident that EnQii will have a very strong future.”

The Amadeus team on this investment was Roy Merritt and Jason Pinto. The Wellington team was Frank Boehnke and Ernst Mannheimer. The Ithmaar Bank team was Carolyn Prowse and Scott Cresswell. Advisers to the investors were: Taylor Wessing and Trowers & Hamlins (Legal) and Baker Tilly (Accounting); and to EnQii: Heller Ehrman (Legal) and PriceWaterhouseCoopers (Tax).

 

END

 

For further information, please contact:

Roy Merritt or Jason Pinto, Amadeus Capital Partners +44 (0)20 7024 6900

Chantal Ligertwood, PR for Amadeus: +44 (0)7976 229 210

Frank Boehnke, Wellington Partners, +44 203 00 61535

Stefan Schwartz, PR for Wellington, +49 (0) 175 52 27 111

 Carolyn Prowse, Ithmmar Bank +973 17584005

Taimour Raouf, PR for Ithmaar Bank +973 17 584 038

 Ajay Chowdhury, EnQii, +44(0)7803172103

Urmalena Gomes, EnQii, +1(212) 675-7820 x 2217

 

NOTES TO EDITORS

 

About Wellington Partners (www.wellington-partners.com)

Wellington Partners is one the most successful pan-European venture capital firms. With € 800 million under management and offices in London, Munich, Palo Alto and Zurich, the firm invests into companies throughout Europe that have the potential to become global leaders, in the areas of Information Technology, Media Convergence, Cleantech and Life Science. Since 1998, Wellington Partners has invested in more than 100 companies in Europe, including now publicly traded Actelion, SAF and XING and successful privately held companies like Alando (acquired by eBay), Ciao (acquired by Microsoft) and ImmobilienScout24 (acquired by Deutsche Telekom).

About Amadeus (www.amadeuscapital.com)

Amadeus is one of Europe’s leading technology investors. Since its inception in 1997, the firm has backed over 60 companies covering computer hardware and software, mobile and fixed communications technologies, medical technologies and clean technologies. Investments include CSR, producing single chip bluetooth radios for short range connections and floated on the London Stock Exchange in 2004, Optos, a manufacturer of laser retinal scanners which had a successful IPO on the London Stock Exchange in 2006, PacketFront, a Swedish company providing systems to manage end-to-end delivery of multiple broadband services, Valista, an electronic payments company and Solexa, the developer of next generation genetic analysis systems, merged with Illumina Inc.

Amadeus Capital Partners Ltd is authorised and regulated by the Financial Services Authority.
Registered office: Mount Pleasant House, 2 Mount Pleasant, Cambridge CB3 0RN, UK. Registered in England no: 3392685.

About Ithmaar Bank, Kingdom of Bahrain (www.ithmaarbank.com)

The Ithmaar banking group consists of: Ithmaar Bank, Shamil Bank, Solidarity (an Islamic insurance company), Faisal Private Bank (Switzerland), Faysal Bank Limited (Pakistan), First Leasing Bank and Ithmaar Development Company. The group’s services, including investment, private, retail, and commercial banking, private equity, mergers & acquisition advice, takaful, leasing, and real estate development, form a 360 degrees value chain that embraces the entire spectrum of banking and financial services.

EnQii Extends Global Reach With Bahrain-based MoFakro Group

Partnerships Creates Involvement in a New Ad-based Network

 

London — EnQii, a leader in the digital signage out-of-home market, extends its global reach by partnering with Bahrain-based MoFakro Group.

“This is a fantastic opportunity to be involved with a leading digital signage company in the Middle East and to be part of their new ad-based network,” said James Abdool, President of EnQii EMEA, which was chosen by MoFakro out of eight potential suppliers.

Backed by EnQii’s media players and its proprietary Remote Transfer software, MoFakro screens have already been installed in aisles and check-out counters in Jawad supermarkets.

“After thoroughly testing the most popular digital signage solutions in the market, MoFakro chose EnQii,” said Jaideep Narindra, CEO of the Core Activities Group of MoFakro. “EnQii is the most reliable solutions provider, with easy accessibility from their RemoteTransfer web browser and robust monitoring and reporting. We also discovered a highly-dedicated support team and knew that EnQii was the right partner for us.”

EnQii currently services thousands of locations across more than 14 countries; their partnership with MoFakro further extends their network in the Middle East.

 

About EnQii

EnQii is a global leader in the digital out-of-home media market with offices in New York, Toronto, London, Dubai, Hong Kong and Shanghai. As one of the world’s truly global digital out-of-home companies, EnQii currently services thousands of locations across more than 14 countries. EnQii couples a deep understanding of customer behavior with its powerful media technologies to provide clients with fully managed solutions that enables them to advance their overall customer communication strategy for many years to come. EnQii won the 2008 DIGI Award for outstanding technology in the healthcare category for the WHEN Network. For more information, please visit www.enqii.com.

 

About MoFakro

MoFakro Group is a holding company with assets across various market sectors. The company was established in 2005 to hold the assets of its owner, Mohammed Adel Fakhro, in his various companies. MoFakro has developed into a leading entity in the Arabian Gulf that operates in various sectors of business including technology, media, property and construction. For more information, please visit www.mofakro.com