The Foundry Kicks off Next Growth Phase With New Majority Owner

LONDON, May 20, 2015 /PRNewswire/ --

The Foundry, a leading provider of award-winning creative software, announced a majority investment from HgCapital, one of the UK's most prestigious private equity firms. Comprising experts from technology and business sectors, HgCapital are perceived as one of the top investors in European software. The Foundry will sit within the Technology, Media & Telecommunications ('TMT') sector of HgCapital. Under the terms of the deal, HgCapital will assume majority ownership from The Carlyle Group for an enterprise value of £200 million ($312 million USD).

"Knowing the direction we plan to take The Foundry, we identified that HgCapital was the ideal partner to build on what The Carlyle Group have helped us achieve," said Bill Collis, chief executive officer, The Foundry. "Nic and his team have such deep software experience, take a long term view on investing and have an amazing track record in taking already solid companies to even greater levels of success. HgCapital achieve this through investment, both in R&D and people, with a deep respect for customer loyalty and satisfaction."

"With this deal, we remain one of the few independent companies solely focused on creative industries. This lets us pursue our best-in-class strategy, prioritizing research and innovation; and teaming with other companies to create powerful collective solutions."

"There are so many elements about The Foundry that we find attractive, not the least of which is the core management team," said Nic Humphries, managing partner of HgCapital and the head of the TMT team. "This is a company that constantly innovates, both in terms of their technology, as well as their business. Bill and his team love nothing more than running head on into the challenges facing creative industries, developing exciting disruptive technologies that have huge potential."

The Foundry's development philosophy centres on the needs of the artists, designers and storytellers identified through our incredibly collaborative customer relationships. Solutions, whether built from the ground up, acquired or developed with partners, will always focus on today's business challenges and future opportunities.

This will leverage our world-class experience in visual effects, design and games. It continues our leadership in emerging trends around collaborative ideation, the automation of creativity, concurrent marketing and manufacturing, as well as new behaviours in storytelling, media collaboration, creation and consumption, such as VR and AR.

For more information on The Foundry, please click here.

About HgCapital

HgCapital is a sector expert private equity investor, supporting management teams to grow industry champions. Deeply resourced sector teams focus on specific sub-sectors and investment themes to identify companies occupying an established position within a niche, and which have the potential to grow faster than their market, create employment and become the leader in their industry. HgCapital's dedicated portfolio management team provides practical support to management teams to help them realise their growth ambitions. HgCapital invests in expanding segments of the TMT, Services, Industrials and Renewable Energy sectors across Western Europe.

Based in London and Munich, HgCapital manages more than £5 billion for some of the world's leading institutional and private investors. For further details, please see http://www.hgcapital.com  Neither the contents of HgCapital's or The Foundry's websites nor the contents of any website accessible from hyperlinks on the websites (or any other website) is incorporated into, or forms part of, this announcement.

About The Foundry 

The Foundry develops award-winning creative software used globally by leading artists, designers and creative professionals. The portfolio lets users create inspiring and technical high-end visuals in the areas of Media Production (film, commercial, episodic, gaming and VR/AR), and Design (enterprise and creative), as well as participate in emerging high-growth markets such as 3D printing. The Foundry's wholly owned subsidiary, Made With Mischief, develops simple, creative and accessible tools and applications that empower people to explore ideas and create. Clients include Pixar, ILM, Double Negative, The Moving Picture Company, Walt Disney Animation, Weta Digital, Framestore and Sony Pictures Imageworks.

In 2013, The Foundry's CEO Bill Collis was recognized as the UK Technology winner for the Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year award, and the company made the Sunday Times Tech Track 100 for the fourth consecutive year.

In 2015, the London Stock Exchange named The Foundry one of its "1000 Companies to Inspire Britain."

© The Foundry, its logo and product names are registered trademarks in the UK, USA and/or other countries.

To find out more, visit us at The Foundry or follow us on LinkedIn, YouTube, FACEBOOK, Twitter, Google+ and Vimeo. To find out more about Made With Mischief, visit us at Made With Mischief, FACEBOOK and Twitter.

For more information, please contact:
The Foundry
Colleen Krenzer
[email protected]
+44(0)20-3298-0878

HgCapital
Maitland
Peter Ogden
[email protected]
+44(0)20-7379-5151

SOURCE The Foundry