Growth equity firm PSG has signed an agreement to acquire a majority stake in Universign, a provider of SaaS-based electronic signature solutions, for an undisclosed sum.
As part of the deal, Universign will join Signaturit and Ivnosys to create a portfolio of digital transaction management and trust services in Europe.
The day-to-day operations at Universign will continue to be led by founder and CEO Julien Stern, who will join the senior management team and remain head of France, becoming a shareholder of the combined group.
“In our view, we’ve built our business on two key principles: simplicity and compliance,” said Stern. “This investment is a testament to our vision, our team and our commitment to providing clients with a solution they can trust. We look forward to working with our new colleagues at Signaturit and Ivnosys, as we believe our combined product suite and expanded European footprint will allow us to accelerate our growth and better serve our clients throughout the region.”
The acquisition follows the recent combination of PSG-backed Signaturit and Ivnosys in April this year.
“We’re thrilled to welcome Universign to the Signaturit and Ivnosys group and believe we can create with them a digital signature leader in Europe,” added Sergio Ruiz and Jaime Castello, co-CEOs of Signaturit and Ivnosys. “Julien and his talented team have built a leading software solution that shares our aim to deliver the safest and most secure solutions in the industry. Together, we aim not only to scale our full platform but to continue to innovate and expand our breadth of products.”
The company has also appointed Bertrand Sciard as its new chairman of the board of the combined group.
“I feel privileged to take on this role at such an exciting time for the company.” said Sciard. “We believe the addition of the Universign platform to Signaturit and Ivnosys will enable us to continue providing the same digitisation solutions to existing customers and build on that to expand the product suite and quality of services to create a whole greater than the sum of its parts.”