Leading growth investor Synova is delighted to announce that Five Arrows Principal Investments (“Five Arrows”), has acquired a majority stake in Mintec (the “Company”). Mintec is the leading global provider of food-related commodity prices, forecasts, and advanced analytics to the $9 trillion food industry; all delivered through its cutting-edge SaaS platform, Mintec Analytics. Mintec provides over 750 of the world’s largest companies with critical data that underpins their procurement, budgeting and risk management covering more than 15,000 food ingredients and associated materials.
Synova first invested in Mintec in December 2017 and has supported the Company through a period of rapid growth, technological development, and international expansion. Synova’s investment helped Mintec launch their proprietary data strategy and to become the world’s first food-focused, IOSCO-compliant, Price Reporting Agency. In 2021, Mintec further enhanced its value proposition by acquiring commodity price forecasting specialist, Kairos, to create the world’s most advanced integrated pricing intelligence platform for food industry procurement and risk managers globally.
Spencer Wicks, CEO of Mintec, commented:
“Synova has been a highly supportive partner for the Company, backing us at every stage, as we deliver on our vision to develop the world’s most advanced commodity price forecasting and analytics platform. Their guidance on our commercial and proprietary data strategy has been invaluable throughout, along with their hands-on support to source the acquisition of Kairos. I’m delighted that Synova are re-investing alongside Five Arrows so they will remain a close partner for Mintec during this next exciting phase of our growth”.
Philip Shapiro, Managing Partner at Synova, noted:
“We have thoroughly enjoyed working in close partnership with Spencer and his team to support the growth of the Company and are delighted to be able to continue our partnership with Mintec. We are excited about the future growth opportunities for Mintec and are pleased to welcome Five Arrows as majority investor, a highly successful investor with specific experience in creating value in data businesses such as Mintec”.
The transaction delivered a return to Synova Fund III of 12x invested capital and an IRR of 80%. Synova will re-invest in the Company for a significant minority stake from its latest Fund IV, a £365m fund raised in 2019.