Carlyle-backed SER Welcomes New Investment from TA to Accelerate Growth

Bonn, Germany, 21 March 2024 – SER (the “Company”), a leading global Intelligent Content Automation (“ICA”) software vendor in the Enterprise Content Management (“ECM”) market, today announced that TA Associates (“TA”), a leading global private equity firm, has agreed to make a strategic growth investment in the Company. SER and Carlyle, an investor in SER since 2018, welcome TA as the new lead investor.

“We are delighted to welcome TA to SER as an investor and we are proud that they share our perspective on the significant opportunities ahead for our business,” said Dr. John Bates, CEO of SER. “SER is revolutionizing the way enterprise content is automated, understood and managed. We have amazing customers, a fantastic team and market leading technology. We have had an outstanding partnership with Carlyle, with incredible support throughout the journey, and we are delighted that TA now joins us to supercharge the next phase of growth.”

Since its founding in 1984, SER has developed from a primarily DACH-focused ECM solutions provider into a category-defining ICA player with highly differentiated AI capabilities and an increasingly international enterprise customer base. In partnership with Carlyle, SER built out its senior management team, successfully executed a rapid shift to a subscription-first business model, expanded its innovation-led product offering, and entered new markets including the US, UK, continental Europe, and the Middle East, through considerable organic investment and M&A.

Today, SER has over 600 employees across 20 offices in 11 countries. The Company’s technology is trusted by blue-chip enterprise customers worldwide. SER’s flagship product, Doxis ICA (“Doxis”), combines traditional ECM capabilities with AI-enabled services that are designed to bridge and automate content across best-of-breed apps and multiple vendor ecosystems like SAP, Salesforce, Microsoft and more. 

“SER’s impressive suite of next-generation ECM solutions helps organizations work faster, smarter and more efficiently,” said Morgan Seigler, Managing Director at TA, and Stefan Dandl, Director at TA. “As the demand for AI-powered technologies continues, we believe SER has a meaningful opportunity to support organizations in their digital transformation journey, harnessing the Doxis platform to streamline document processing and content management needs. We look forward to partnering with Carlyle and SER to accelerate international expansion, invest in AI innovation and enhance the Company’s product offering.” 

“We are immensely proud to have partnered with SER during such a significant period of growth and transformation for the business,” said Dr. Thorsten Dippel, Managing Director in the Carlyle Europe Technology Partners (“CETP”) Investment Advisory team. “Through our work with Dr. John Bates and his incredible team, the Company has developed into the category-leading, international ICA software vendor it is today. SER is well-placed to continue its success story as an enterprise software player of scale in the large and growing global ECM market. We are delighted to partner with TA as the new lead investor in SER as the Company enters the next phase of its growth journey.”

The transaction is subject to customary regulatory approvals.

Contacts

For SER
Maureen Cueppers
maureen.cueppers@sergroup.com

For TA 
Maggie Benoit
mbenoit@ta.com

For Carlyle
Nicholas Brown
nicholas.brown@carlyle.com

About SER
Trusted by over 5 million users worldwide, SER is defining Intelligent Content Automation (ICA), the next generation of Enterprise Content Management which leverages AI to provide intelligent content understanding and process automation. SER’s highly scalable Doxis platform brings ICA capabilities into a single, unified platform that works seamlessly across multiple applications and vendor ecosystems, such as SAP, Salesforce and Microsoft. Offering many pre-built solutions and user-friendly no-code tooling, SER’s Doxis delivers rapid time-to-value, superior ROI and lower total cost of ownership for next-generation content applications. Headquartered in Bonn, Germany, SER has a well-established market leadership position in DACH and a fast-growing international business with blue-chip customers around the world.

About TA
TA is a leading global private equity firm focused on scaling growth in profitable companies. Since 1968, TA has invested in more than 560 companies across its five target industries – technology, healthcare, financial services, consumer and business services. Leveraging its deep industry expertise and strategic resources, TA collaborates with management teams worldwide to help high-quality companies deliver lasting value. The firm has raised $65 billion in capital to date and has over 150 investment professionals across offices in Boston, Menlo Park, Austin, London, Mumbai and Hong Kong. More information about TA can be found at www.ta.com.

About Carlyle
Carlyle (NASDAQ: CG) is a global investment firm with deep industry expertise that deploys private capital across its business and conducts its operations through three business segments: Global Private Equity, Global Credit and Global Investment Solutions. With $426 billion of assets under management as of December 31, 2023, Carlyle’s purpose is to invest wisely and create value on behalf of its investors, portfolio companies and the communities in which we live and invest. Carlyle employs more than 2,200 people in 28 offices across four continents. Further information is available at www.carlyle.com. For more, follow Carlyle on LinkedIn and X.