Catalyst Romania sells its remaining shares in SmartBill to The Norwegian Group Visma
Bucharest, May 28th
Catalyst Romania Fund I has just announced the sale of its remaining shares in Smartbill, the leading Romanian provider of invoicing, inventory and accounting cloud services with over 110,000 SME customers, to the Norwegian Group Visma. This is another successful exit story from the Catalyst Romanian Fund I portfolio, following other exits such as Green Horse Games being sold to Miniclip, a Tencent subsidiary, or Vector Watch being sold to FitBit, who later made an exit to Google. Catalyst Romania Fund I was the first early-stage venture capital Fund in Romania and was financed through EIF’s JEREMIE program (the JEREMIE Romania initiative) that invested more than €12m in 10 well-known Romanian tech companies in recent years, including Vola.ro, AvocatNet.ro, 123FormBuilder, Simartis, SmartDreamers or OmniConvert.
SmartBill was founded in 2006 by Ioana and Radu Hasan and Mircea Căpățînă. The Company launched its invoicing software in 2011 and released its first cloud invoicing product in 2014. In February 2016 Catalyst Romania led an €1.1m financing round, providing capital for the Company to continue its product development and add features like multiuser access for one account, new mobile functionalities, integrations with other applications and tools – all these while maintaining the highest security level for its customers. Over time, SmartBill grew into the clear leader of its vertical in Romania, owner of the most used e-invoicing software in the country.
“The journey of growth with Catalyst as an investor and partner has been remarkable, witnessing a tenfold expansion over the span of eight years. Marius’s invaluable advice played a pivotal role during crucial junctures in the business, contributing significantly to our success. It’s partnerships like these that shape the trajectory of a company, and we’re grateful for the support and guidance provided by Catalyst and Marius throughout this journey,” said Radu Hasan, CEO and Co-Founder of Smartbill.
In 2020 Visma acquired more than 50% of Smartbill and joined the existing shareholders on their path to enhance the accelerated growth rate and the development of the SmartBill ecosystem, with the purpose to improve the activity of SMEs in Romania.
“The growth journey for SmartBill has been amazing, and a big reason for the success has been the close collaboration with Marius and the rest of the team from Catalyst. Marius not only brings local market knowledge, but his broad experience within entrepreneurship and business development has helped set the company’s direction and focus. Collaborating with him has been a pleasure, and I hope I will get the opportunity again,” said Alicia Halaas, Business Area Director, Visma Small Business Segment.
SmartBill grew almost 20 times since the initial Catalyst investment, with annual increases of revenues of 30 to 60 percent, becoming the market leader in financial and accounting solutions in Romania. As of March 2024, over 6.5 million documents are issued monthly through the platform, and their value exceeds €35 billion per year. For 2024, the company estimates a 60% increase in turnover and expects to exceed the threshold of 150,000 customers.
“I was privileged to be a part of the SmartBill success story, assisting the founders with advice already some years before our investment through Catalyst Romania Fund I was done, together with Gecad Ventures as co-investors. It is great to see where the Company is now and I am confident SmartBill can continue to grow much more in the years to come, but as Fund investors, we need to exit our companies at a certain moment, given the limited lifetime of such an investment structure,” said Marius Ghenea, Managing Partner, Catalyst Romania.
About Catalyst Romania
Catalyst Romania is a fund manager that launched the first private equity and venture capital fund dedicated to Romania in 2012, funded through JEREMIE. The fund manager prioritises investments in rapidly growing sectors, including Technology & Internet, Media & Communications, and Technology Services. The team provides growth capital to companies that are or have the potential to become regional leaders or global players. For more information, please visit catalystromania.com.
About Jeremie
JEREMIE (“Joint European Resources for Micro to Medium Enterprises” or “Joint European Resources for Micro to medium Enterprises in”) was a joint initiative of the Directorate-General for Regional Policy of the European Commission and the European Investment Bank Group (which includes European Investment Fund), which aimed to improve access to finance for SMEs in the European Union. In Romania, the JEREMIE Holding Fund was initially financed by the Sectoral Operational Programme “Increase of Economic Competitiveness” 2007-2013. Since 2020, the reflows from the JEREMIE initiative continue to be managed by EIF and to be utilised for financing new SMEs.