Aventa, a specialist in renewable marine energy, raises €10M from NextStage AM.
Paris, April 14, 2023 – NextStage AM supports the development of Aventa, one of the European leaders in consulting and engineering dedicated to the booming global market of Marine Renewable Energies (MRE). With this fundraising of 10 million euros, Aventa is anchoring its position as a key player in the energy transition.
Founded in 2010 by two engineers, Antoine Bosc and Aurélien Zuccarini, Aventa has developed a very strong expertise in engineering and consulting services for complex offshore projects with a specialization in submarine power cabling. Aventa is particularly active in offshore wind power and contributes to the development of new marine innovations such as floating wind power, green hydrogen and energy storage.
The group employs more than a hundred people divided between its three service offerings: (i) design office, (ii) consulting and (iii) offshore operations. The company has offices in France (Paris , Bidart, Nantes) and internationally (Italy, England, United States) which gives it an operational presence as close as possible to its customers, mainly major international contractors such as EDF, Vattenfall, RTE or even installers like Prysmian, Asso Subsea, Boskalis.
Following a trajectory of hyper growth (+50% pa on average between 2019 and 2022) coupled with strong historical profitability, Aventa achieved nearly €25 million in sales last year, including 80% internationally, deploying around 200 employees on assignment in more than 25 countries. The group intends to continue on this dynamic and is aiming for more than 100 million euros in turnover by 2025.
Since 2011, Aventa has developed a digital HR tool, AJM (Aventa Job Matching), which identifies 80 qualified profiles in MREs. Via this proprietary platform, the company optimizes its responses to the needs of its customers through automated talent targeting and an easy-to-use employee & customer interface. Aventa is also developing its own WeAventa marketplace aimed at bringing together, within an innovative digital platform, the most advanced skills of MREs. Finally, the group intends to accelerate the development of Aventa Academy to ensure a continuous increase in the skills of its teams and other external talents to respond to the tensions observed in the sector.
The global offshore wind market is experiencing a clear acceleration and has significant visibility on its growth in the coming years. In a context of transition to renewable energies and the desire to establish their energy sovereignty, many countries are committing to installing new wind platforms. This is particularly true in Europe, where the stated ambitions are the strongest (capacities multiplied by 10 between 2022 and 2031) and in the United States under the impetus of the Inflation Reduction Act (+45 GW of offshore wind power including 15 GW of floating wind power by 2035).
In order to support this market in its technological and human needs, Aventa wishes to establish itself as a key player in the MRE sector by helping to structure it and federate the key skills of the Blue Economy ecosystem. This ambition requires a clear strategy:
– Densify its international network by opening new offices for greater proximity to key players in the sector;
– Develop the activity of its design office in order to contribute to the removal of technological barriers to MREs;
– Respond to significant construction and installation needs at sea by strengthening its maritime services offer;
– Provide the sector with key skills, by accelerating the training and recruitment of new qualified talent to support the rapid development of MREs in France and abroad.
“We have this chance as an entrepreneur to be in a unique momentum of global model change in the energy sector. NextStage AM has fully understood our hyper growth challenges, and shares our convictions on the buoyant MRE market as well as our work philosophy. His support reinforces the robustness of the engineering solutions and the added value that we are able to bring to our customers and our teams,” says Antoine Bosc, co-founder of Aventa.
“France has all the key success factors to become a European and world leader in MREs. We have a very favorable national ecosystem with key players in marine energies such as Total or Technip and a whole network of universities, laboratories and test sites that allow us to hatch innovative technologies to meet the challenges of transition and energy sovereignty while contributing to the creation of a new local industrial sector", adds Aurélien Zuccarini, co-founder of Aventa.
“We are very happy to support Antoine and Aurélien in this new stage of industrialization and internationalization of Aventa. This investment reflects the acceleration of NextStage in the world of energy transition and clean environmental solutions,” concludes Julien Potier, partner at NextStage AM.
Actors of the operation:
Contractors: Antoine Bosc, Aurélien Zuccarini
Entrepreneur advice:
- Senior banker: Edmond de Rothschild (Guillaume Jaureguiberry, Augustin Hay, Thomas Guillemard)
- VDD: Mazars (Isabelle Tristan, Virgile Auriol, Pierre Lecrosnier)
- Counsel: August Debouzy (Julien Wagmann, Coralie Foucault)
NextStage AM: Julien Potier (Partner), Agathe Anquetil (Business Manager), Gaëtan Leenhardt (Analyst)
NextStage AM tips:
- Finance: Mazars (Baptiste Faye, Malaury Guyonvernier, Valentin Bocquet)
- Counsel: FTPA (François-Xavier Beauvisage, Julien Garanger, Lucie Lachand)
- Legal, social and tax advice: FTPA (François-Xavier Beauvisage, Julien Garanger, Lucie Lachand, Sophie Jouniaux, Adeline Petijean, Laure Calice)
- ESG: Axa Climate (Julien Famy, Théophile Bellouard, Rafaella Scheer)
- IT: Symeo (Pierre Oucif, Arthur Seguin)
About Aventa:
Founded in 2010 by Antoine Bosc and Aurélien Zuccarini, Aventa is an independent consulting and engineering company structured around three main offerings: design office, consulting and offshore operations. The company employs over a hundred employees, spread across France (Paris, Bidart, Nantes) and abroad (Italy, England, United States) and is aimed at major international contractors such as EDF, Vattenfall, RTE or the installers like Prysmian, Asso Subsea, Boskalis.
Aventa is active in offshore wind and contributes to the development of new marine innovations such as floating wind, green hydrogen and energy storage. The group aims to provide the sector with key skills, by accelerating the training and recruitment of new qualified talent to support the booming sector of Marine Renewable Energies.
https://www.aventa.fr/
About NextStage AM:
An independent management company based in Paris, approved by the AMF, NextStage AM, which has cultivated since the beginning in 2002, an "entrepreneur-investor" philosophy, is one of the pioneers and leaders of innovative and patient development capital in France. NextStage AM has developed, step by step, a multi-strategy Private Equity platform which represents in terms of assets at the end of December 2022, directly and indirectly, €7.5 billion in AUM. NextStage AM invests in a limited number of SMEs and ETIs (89 portfolio companies as of 31/12/2022), French and European, innovative and growing, to which it provides entrepreneurial expertise as an investor and strong operational support (integration environmental innovation, talents, international, external growth). NextStage AM provides long-term support to these SMEs and ETIs involved in smart health, environmental innovation and digital. It gives them the means to accelerate their development and their capacity for innovation to become the “Champions” of their markets, both in France and internationally, through organic and/or external growth.
Press contacts:
Aventa Group: media@aventa.fr
NextStage AM: Jonathan Boudin – jbo@nextstage.com – (+33) 1 44 29 99 04
Shan: Laurence Tovi – laurence.tovi@shan.fr – (+33) 6 20 58 29 02 / Lola Gozlan – lola.gozlan@shan.fr – (+33) 6 24 76 83 40 / Anne-Laure Daulier – al .daulier@shan.fr – (+33) 6 28 59 50 38
