Paris, January 31, 2024 – CLAREO Lighting, a new generation French designer and manufacturer of LED lighting products and solutions for professionals, announces a funding round of more than 35 million euros from NextStage AM, MI3, BNP Paribas Development and Adelie. NextStage AM and the other financial partners become minority shareholders, notably through the Pépites & Territoires by AXA & NextStage AM fund. With this operation, CLAREO intends to accelerate its development to become a reference in the LED lighting market in France and Europe, while maintaining its independence.
Since its creation in 2012 by Olivier Maschino and Damien Sipos, CLAREO has established itself in France as a key player in the design of professional LED lighting products and solutions. CLAREO is aimed directly at large electrical installers, as well as architects, design offices and end customers, mainly in the tertiary sector (offices, retail, hotels, etc.) and industry.
CLAREO has been able to disrupt a competitive market dominated by large international groups and has established itself thanks to its very high operational efficiency and quality of service. The group made the strategic choice from its creation to directly serve electricians and end customers, ensuring them excellent product quality (99,73% reliability) and a tailor-made offer. The group employs around 90 employees throughout France. CLAREO has one of the largest sales teams on the market, today representing around fifty people spread across different regions of France, working closely with customers. CLAREO's strength also lies in its design office, based in Paris and made up of 15 experienced engineers. In strong organic growth since its creation, the group has crossed the 40 million euros turnover mark in 2023.
At the heart of energy transition issues with an LED offer with a positive environmental impact contributing to the reduction of energy consumption, CLAREO has worked since its creation to integrate ESG issues into its business model. EcoVadis silver medalist since 2022, the group has an ambitious ESG approach to continue to progress and to position itself as a leader in its market (eco-design, responsible purchasing, social practices, etc.).
The professional LED lighting market is particularly buoyant in France, estimated at more than 1 billion euros in 2022, with +5% growth per year expected by 2028, driven in particular by the renovation of buildings which is accelerated thanks to an increasingly incentive regulatory framework in favor of energy efficiency and by a still very significant equipment potential in the tertiary sector and industry.
Building on the funding round achieved with NextStage AM, through the NextStage EverGreen, Pépites & Territoires by AXA & NextStage AM funds and the Capital Entrepreneur program, MI3, BNP Paribas Développement and Adelie, CLAREO intends to continue the development of its offer, strengthen the integration of innovation and smart lighting, and accelerate its international deployment, particularly in cross-border countries, both through organic growth and by carrying out strategic external growth operations.
“In 12 years, CLAREO has achieved the strongest organic growth in its market. Today, with more than 40 million euros in turnover, CLAREO is a key player due to its size, the quality of its products, its lead in services, as well as its marketing and digital approach. When a group reaches this size, in order to continue strong development, it is useful to structure itself accordingly, and I am very happy with the association with 4 renowned financial partners who will each play a role in the pursuit of this great adventure,” declares Olivier Maschino, co-founder and President of CLAREO.
“I am very happy with the completion of this operation: it is a new important step in the history of CLAREO which will, among other things, allow us to accelerate innovation in the development of new products and services in order to bring us even closer to the needs and expectations of our ever-growing customers, but also to go further in our ESG and CSR commitments. These new partners will provide solid support for imagining and designing the most beautiful lighting solutions of tomorrow, both for France and for Europe,” declares Damien Sipos, co-founder and Vice-President of CLAREO.
“CLAREO is a unique player who has been able to win over its customers directly thanks to strong technical skills and a DNA focused on organizational and service innovation. We are very happy to support entrepreneurs in this new phase of development. We are convinced that CLAREO is perfectly positioned to provide a relevant response to the fast-growing professional LED and smart lighting market. At the heart of the challenges of energy transition and environmental innovation, this operation naturally fits into our priority areas of investment,” declares Jean-David Haas, co-founder and Managing Director of NextStage AM.
“Through Pépites & Territoires, AXA France is proud to support the development of an independent French player who actively participates in the energy transition. This investment is further proof of our commitment to environmental innovation,” adds Corinne Calendini, Managing Director of Axa Savings, Retirement and Individual Protection.
Actors of the operation:
Investors:
NextStage AM: Jean-David Haas (General Manager), Mounia Hakam (Senior Business Manager), Emilio Johnston (Business Manager)
MI3: Christian Haas, Jérôme Dhamelincourt, Géraldine Hottier-Fayon
BNP Paribas Development: Delphine Larrandaburu, Sandrine Prevost
Adelie: Jean-Manuel Costa, Quentin Gazay, Hugo Tranzer
Investor Tips:
M&A and financing advice: Edmond de Rothschild Corporate Finance (Axel Riquet, Paul Assaël, Carlos Martinez Oliva, Mariah Atchekzai)
Investor advice lawyers & Legal, Tax and Social DD: Moncey Avocats (Guillaume Giuliani, Frédéric Bosc, Mikaël Brainenberg, Alix Auclair)
Strategic DD: Strategy& (Xavier Monin, Jonathan Liblau)
Financial DD: Oderis (Thomas Claverie, Andoni Balaguer)
DD ESG: Better Way (Valentin Bouteiller, Samuel Monteiro)
Advice from entrepreneurs and transferors:
M&A Advisor: Clipperton (Nicolas von Bülow, Martin Vielle, Karim Mekouar, Ghislain de Buchet, Pierre Pinsault)
Lawyers for entrepreneurs and transferors: Hogan Lovells (Stéphane Huten, Ludovic Geneston, Laura Medjoub, Eliott Fourcade)
Strategic VDD: Eleven Strategy (Maxime Caro, Stevan Urien, Jérémy Bismuth)
VDD Financial: Eight Advisory (Fabien Thieblemont, Guillaume Héral)
Bank debt:
Banque Palatine (Guillemette Valantin)
Crédit Agricole d’Ile-de-France (Romain Desgranges)
BNP Paribas (Daniel Ardeljan)
About CLAREO Lighting:
Founded by Olivier MASCHINO and Damien SIPOS, both engineers, the CLAREO company was founded in early 2012. A new generation French manufacturer, CLAREO offers LED lighting products and solutions. With more than 40 million euros in turnover, CLAREO is today a leading player in the LED lighting market. To achieve this, the company relies in particular on innovative products and solutions, large-scale projects and provides lighting solutions for big names such as the Musée d'Orsay, the Paris Sorbonne University, the François Mitterrand National Library. or the Marriott Roissy hotel.
About NextStage AM:
Independent management company based in Paris, approved by the AMF, NextStage AM, which has cultivated an “entrepreneur-investor” philosophy since its inception in 2002, 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, managed and advised, as of September 30, 2023, directly and indirectly, nearly €8 billion in AUM. NextStage AM invests in a limited number of SMEs and ETIs (84 portfolio companies as of 30/09/2023), French and European, innovative and growth, to which it provides entrepreneurial investor expertise and strong operational support (integration environmental innovation, talents, international, external growth). NextStage AM provides long-term support to these SMEs & 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 “Champions” of their markets, both in France and internationally, through organic and/or external growth.
About MI3:
A private investment holding under Luxembourg law founded in 2011, MI3 brings together an experienced management team around Christian Haas and Philippe Dhamelincourt. Through development capital, MI3 supports entrepreneurs and their strategic external growth, financing and recruitment projects.
About BNP Paribas Développement:
BNP Paribas Development, an independent subsidiary of the international banking group BNP Paribas, is a public limited company that has invested its own funds directly for more than 30 years as a minority shareholder to support the development of high-performance SMEs and ETIs and ensure their sustainability by facilitating their transmission. Beyond the financial resources made available to the company to ensure stable resources, the vocation of BNP Paribas Development is to provide long-term support to the management team in carrying out its medium-term strategic projects. Our minority position ensures our partners appropriate governance without interference in day-to-day management, while benefiting from the strength of a recognized group and the experience of a partner with a portfolio of more than 500 diversified holdings.
About Adelie:
Adelie is a private equity firm launched in 2019, based in Paris and London. Adelie's multi-stage funds typically invest between €1 million and €10 million in technology companies in Europe. Adelie's investor base brings together more than 200 tech entrepreneurs, senior partners of private equity funds and executives of large financial companies. Adelie also has close ties with Clipperton, a European technology investment bank which has worked on more than 400 transactions over the past 20 years. This partnership provides Adelie with unique access to quality investment opportunities at different stages of development throughout Europe. The team's investments include AramisAuto, Botify, Brevo (ex-Sendinblue), Equativ (ex-Smart), Fenergo, Glovo, Leetchi, Nexthink, Odoo, Teads, ThirdBridge…
Press contacts:
CLAREO Lighting: Marion LEICK – marion.leick@clareolighting.com – 33 (0) 6 60 76 39 93
NextStage AM: Ghita Farage – gf@nextstage.com – 33 (0)1 53 93 49 40
Shan: Lola Gozlan – lola.gozlan@shan.fr – 33 (0) 6 24 76 83 40 / Anne-Laure Daulier – al.daulier@shan.fr – 33 (0) 6 28 59 50 38
