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News calendar    Mar 31, 2020

Edison Partners Exits Solovis

Edison Partners today announced it has completed the sale of its stake in Solovis to Nasdaq, generating over a 50% IRR on its $13 million total investment.

Delivers its third fintech exit in 2020 to a strategic buyer

 

PRINCETON, N.J. and DALLAS (March 31, 2020)—Edison Partners, the leading growth-equity investment firm, today announced it has completed the sale of its stake in Solovis to Nasdaq (Nasdaq: NDAQ), generating over a 50% IRR on its $13 million total investment.

 

Headquartered in Dallas, Solovis offers multi-asset class portfolio management, analytics and reporting tools for asset owners and allocators. Solovis’ solutions, which enable public and private assets to be managed on the same platform, will become available through Nasdaq’s eVestment group and broaden eVestment’s capabilities for institutional investors.

 

The third fintech exit for Edison Partners this year following the acquisitions of Scivantage by Refinitiv and Clearpool by BMO Financial Group, Solovis also represents the first exit for the firm in the state of Texas. Solovis was the first earlier stage investment completed by Edison Partners. As part of its earlier stage investment strategy, Edison Partners invests $2 to $4 million in fast-growing companies that initially have revenues of less than $5 million but share traits of later stage companies. These companies have the ability to quickly “graduate” to a core investment, with Edison Partners leading future financing rounds. This was the case with Solovis, as the company achieved phenomenal revenue growth over a four-year period, with Edison Partners leading each of the company’s subsequent funding rounds through exit.

 

“Solovis has disrupted the status quo in institutional investing and is an ideal fit for a global powerhouse like Nasdaq looking to elevate its technology and analytics capabilities in the investment technology markets,” said Tom VanderSchaaff, General Partner at Edison Partners, who led the initial and subsequent investments. “Our capital and value-add to the Solovis team on their growth journey has proven out tremendously well over a short period of time. We’re extremely proud of co-founders Josh Smith and Caleb Doise and the rest of the management team for being great partners in delivering this outcome.”

 

“We’re excited to now be a part of Nasdaq and to continue to transform institutional investing for asset owners and allocators, now with an even broader data and technology footprint and global geographic reach,” said Josh Smith, co-founder and CEO of Solovis. “The added financial support and operating expertise that Edison Partners provided was instrumental in helping us accelerate Solovis’ growth and bringing us to this milestone. We greatly appreciate their confidence in our vision, which resulted in a top-tier exit in just over three years.” Smith will continue to serve as CEO of Solovis.

 

Financial terms of the sale were not disclosed.

 

Edison Partners has financed and guided more than 235 private companies, including more than 46 fintech companies. The firm was recognized for two years in a row as Fintech Equity Investor of the Year by LendIt Fintech and named to the Institutional Investor’s Fintech Finance 40 power ranking.

 

Noteworthy fintech exits include Billtrust, Clearpool Group, EdgeTrade, FolioDynamix, GAIN Capital, Liberty Tax, and Princeton Financial. Current financial technology investments include: BFS Capital, Bento for Business, Bipsync, ComplySci, FundThatFlip, GAN Integrity, Giant Oak, MoneyLion, Predata, YieldStreet, and Zelis.

 

About Solovis

Solovis is leading fintech innovation for institutional investors with a powerful cloud-based platform for multi-asset class portfolio management, reporting and analytics – uniquely designed for the limited partner community. Endowments, foundations, pensions, OCIOs and family offices leverage Solovis to transform how they collect and aggregate investment data, analyze portfolio performance, model and predict future outcomes and share meaningful portfolio insights with key stakeholders. The Solovis institutional investment management technology platform enables detailed analysis and dynamic data modeling across multiple portfolios and pools of capital for actionable, transparent insights that empower both operations and investment teams.

 

About Edison Partners

For more than 30 years, Edison Partners has been helping CEOs and their executive teams grow and scale successful companies. The firm's investment team brings extensive investing and operating experience to each investment. Through a unique combination of growth capital and the Edison Edge platform, consisting of operating centers of excellence, the Edison Director Network, and executive education programs, Edison employs a truly integrated approach to accelerating growth and creating value for businesses. A team of experts in enterprise solutions, financial technology, and healthcare IT sectors, Edison targets high-growth companies with $5 to $25 million in revenue; investments also include buyouts, recapitalizations, spinouts and secondary stock purchases.

 

Edison's active portfolio has created aggregated market value exceeding $10 billion. Edison Partners is based in Princeton, NJ and manages more than $1.4 billion in assets throughout the eastern United States.