ICON Corporate Finance advises AI platform-as-a-service provider ForePaaS on its acquisition
Tech-focused investment bank ICON Corporate Finance has completed its latest deal in the active AI & Data Technologies space, advising on the acquisition of ForePaas by OVHcloud (Paris:OVH), the European leader in cloud computing.
ICON believes that the transaction will be transformative as the pairing of these innovative businesses delivers a perfect combination of AI PaaS and cloud hosting.
ForePaaS offers a unified platform specialising in data analytics, machine learning, and artificial intelligence for businesses. Its integrated solution allows customers to initiate, simplify, and accelerate the implementation of machine learning and data analytics. The company’s suite of solutions addresses a wide range of use cases to fully manage the data value chain and create critical applications based on data for analysis, business intelligence, and optimisation of existing processes.
The ease of use and deployment of the ForePaaS platform has enabled the company to rapidly develop an international customer base. In Europe, its expertise has been adopted by Klépierre and Gefco. In Asia, ForePaaS has notably entered into a strong partnership with the Mistubishi Research Institute (MRI).
Commenting on the transaction Ben Kolada, Director at ICON, said: “We’re proud to have advised ForePaaS on this strategically significant deal. Acquiring ForePaaS further propels OVHcloud’s Platform-as-a-Service strategy and reinforces its position as a leading global player in cloud + AI.”
Thierry Souche, OVHcloud CTO, says: “By acquiring ForePaaS, we are endowing ourselves with an expert team that will complete the spectrum of OVHcloud’s competencies to fast-track the delivery of an expanded portfolio of development environments in the Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) segment. This acquisition of technology bricks and skills will allow us to serve an increasing breadth of use cases for our clients who are looking for agile solutions to facilitate their adoption of the cloud and give them full control over the lifecycle of their data.”
ICON client Paul Sinai, CEO & co-founder at ForePaaS, added: “Since our inception in 2015, we have been working hard to fulfill a vision; one where companies would be able to create and manage their own AI and Data Analytics Factory simply and autonomously. OVHcloud quickly became a trusted partner for deploying our solutions. Today, I am delighted with this alliance which will allow us to jointly provide companies with a new generation of platforms for the large-scale deployment of their critical applications.”
The transaction reinforces ICON’s expertise in the AI & Data Technologies market. Within the past year, ICON has advised on HealthTech analytics company RWHealth’s scale up funding from Maven Capital partners, the acquisition of data quality provider 360science by Syniti, and flood risk analytics startup Fathom Global’s strategic investment from Moody’s.
Ben Kolada led the transaction out of ICON’s Silicon Valley office while ICON CEO Alan Bristow and analyst Ed Oliver provided European coverage.
