(Boursier.com) — After three and a half years of collaboration, NextStage AM sells its stake in the takeover of Once For All (OFA) by the British actor Fortius, backed by the international fund Warburg Pincus. Co-founded at the end of 2010 by Renaud Sornin, Attestation Légale, renamed OFA, is a Lyon-based scale-up that has developed a BtoB SaaS for managing business compliance. The collaborative platform thus makes it possible to connect companies with each other, to simplify their daily lives, to secure and optimize relations between contractors and suppliers. Essentially present in the construction market, its historic core business, the group has gradually developed in other related markets such as energy and real estate development.
NextStage AM has been supporting Attestation Légale since March 2018 on the occasion of a development capital fundraising of nearly 4 ME. The company then had 70 employees, 23,000 client companies and generated an Annual Recurring Revenue (ARR) close to 5 ME.
During these three and a half years of fruitful collaboration, the group has changed in size, continuing as expected its very strong growth around three pillars: the continuous innovation of its technological core, the development of new solutions meeting the need for increasing equipment of customers and finally the acceleration of its Europeanization. OFA thus created a joint structure in Germany (OFA GmBH) with its partner Zertifizierung Bau in 2018. The group also rolled out its operations in Italy in 2021.
In three and a half years, OFA has more than doubled its ARR and its community of client companies. In addition, the company now has more than a hundred employees mainly located in Lyon.
Present exclusively on the British market, the Fortius group, supported by the international fund Warburg Pincus, acquires the OFA group with the aim of becoming the benchmark player in corporate compliance on a European scale.
“OFA is a great entrepreneurial story for NextStage AM. We are extremely proud to have supported Renaud Sornin and Romain Benoit, whose entrepreneurial vision and enthusiasm we have always shared. Since 2018, OFA has changed in size to become the essential reference in its market. The development potential is still very significant in this Blue Ocean market”, comments Julien Potier, Partner at NextStage AM.
“The unwavering support of NextStage AM, embodied by Julien Potier, his adherence to our project, our values and his know-how as an entrepreneur-investor have been essential to the development of OFA. During these three and a half years, the he genuineness of the relationships developed have been the basis of our growth in France and have enabled us to penetrate the European market. More than ever, our company has solid development prospects ahead of it. Now accompanied by Fortius, this magnificent adventure continues for provide the European construction, real estate, energy and environment sectors with the platform for the secure B2B relationships they expect” says Renaud Sornin, co-founder and president of OFA.
“The support of Nextstage AM during the delicate phase of the scaling up of OFA and its internationalization has been a real support for our success. This new stage alongside Fortius will allow us to combine our approaches and our investments for a platform and services that further facilitate relations between European players in construction, real estate, energy and the environment” adds Romain Benoit, CEO of OFA.