Private Equity News & Analysis

EnQii raises $18m for ‘aggressive’ expansion

Amadeus and Wellington have joined Ithmaar Bank as investors in EnQii, which designs and installs ‘digital out-of-home’ advertising networks. Following Ithmaar’s $10m investment last year, EnQii has made three acquisitions.

-

EnQii: 'aggressive'
expansion planned

Amadeus Capital Partners and Wellington Partners have invested $18 million (€13 million) in a Series B round financing in EnQii Holdings. EnQii was originally seeded by Bahrainian bank Ithmaar and has grown via a series of acquisitions.

Details of each firm's specific investment were not disclosed. Roy Merritt, partner at Amadeus, and Wellington general partner Frank Boehnke will join Ithmaar managing director Carolyn Prowse on the company's board.
 
“While we have had very strong organic growth over the last year, this level of investment and the quality of the investors gives us the additional capacity to be more aggressive in both opportunity development and in serving our customers’ needs,” said Ajay Chowdhury, EnQii’s chief executive officer.
 
EnQii develops, installs and operates “digital out-of-home” advertising networks, which range in scale from shelf-mounted screens in shops to large outdoor LED screens and digital billboards.
 
The company was seeded by Ithmaar Bank with $10 million in October 2007 and simultaneously acquired three businesses, the largest being global digital marketing network Digital View Media. The other two acquisitions were mobile phone marketing agency Redeemit and content provider Screen-Edge.
 
EnQii is headquartered in the UK with offices in New York, Toronto, Hong Kong and Shanghai, and services clients in 14 countries across the world.
 
In September Wellington, which is headquartered in Munich, Germany, hired former Yahoo! and 3i digital media expert Daniel Waterhouse.